The White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics is gathering federal counter-drone officials, state and local agencies and drone-security vendors at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on November 9. The forum lands one week before states have to apply for the second $250 million round of FEMA’s counter-drone grants, due November 16 at 5 p.m. Eastern.
This round is the first open to all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five territories, and FEMA wrote the Los Angeles Games into its priorities, down to the torch relay. California, home of the Games, gets $18,665,396. In the World Cup round last December, it got $34,591,628.
Guaranteed Minimums Claim 70% of the Olympic Round
California’s share shrank because this round has to reach 56 jurisdictions instead of 12. Every state, Puerto Rico and D.C. is guaranteed $3,325,000, and four smaller territories at least $760,000 each. Those floors add up to $175.94 million, which leaves $74.06 million for FEMA’s risk formula.
That remainder follows the DHS terrorism risk methodology and how DHS Science and Technology reviewers score the effectiveness of each state’s projects. California’s $15.3 million above its floor is the largest slice, ahead of New York at $10.6 million and Texas at $7.2 million, according to FEMA’s allocation table. Vermont gets the smallest state award, $3,414,026.
The first round worked the other way. FEMA split $250 million among 11 states hosting or supporting World Cup matches and the National Capital Region, and California’s $34.6 million was the largest award, ahead of Texas at $30.3 million, as DroneXL reported in January when Missouri’s $14.24 million share surfaced. Both rounds come from the same $500 million that Congress put in the July 2025 reconciliation law.
The Forum Puts Five Federal Drone Officials in a Room With 2,000 Buyers and Sellers
DRONERESPONDERS and the Commercial Drone Alliance co-host the November 9 event with the White House task force. Organizers expect about 2,000 attendees, up from the more than 400 the first edition drew in November 2025 under the World Cup task force.
The event page lists Nicholas Forni, deputy executive director of the Olympics task force; Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401; Brian Reed, director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council; Steven Willoughby, executive director of the DHS program executive office for drones and counter-drone systems; and Reuben Coleman, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. Homeland Security Today listed the second $250 million tranche among the forum’s topics.
Registration is free for public safety and government personnel. Companies apply to exhibit, and a private meeting room for the day costs $15,000. Each state’s allocation is already published. Vendors get a day with the agencies that will decide what that money buys, a week before the applications are due.
FEMA Wants Grant-Bought Jammers Working Olympic-Class Events 80% of the Time
The notice of funding opportunity sets a target that 80% of mitigation systems bought with this money protect the Olympics, the torch relay, or other National Special Security Events and SEAR-rated events. Only 20% of their use should go to events without national significance.
Mitigation means mobile jammers, radio-frequency protocol manipulation and command injection or cyber takeover systems, and only categories on the federal Authorized Technologies List qualify. Fixed mitigation equipment is not allowed. DHS Science and Technology reviewers score each state’s projects after award, with two big categories: up to 40 points for supporting a named event of national significance between 2027 and 2029, and up to 30 for mobile mitigation tied to a specific list entry.
Buying a jammer and switching it on are separate steps. Under the Safer Skies Act rules, only an accredited law enforcement or correctional agency can operate one, and only through officers holding the FBI’s mitigation certification, which is taught in person at the bureau’s Redstone Arsenal school and nowhere else. An agency can apply while its officers are still enrolled in or scheduled for the course. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in October that the school will more than double its capacity, without saying what the current capacity is. The lower detection-and-warning certificate is a free online course with no waitlist, and the government expects about 1,500 agencies to hold it within two years.
Every Grant-Funded Sensor Has to Share Its Drone Data With DHS
As a condition of the award, any agency buying detection hardware, software or data services with this money must give DHS access to the detection events, flight tracks, sensor metadata and Remote ID or other identifier information the system collects, to support what FEMA calls nationwide low-altitude air domain awareness.
The notice adds that the Justice, Energy and War departments, the FAA, the FCC and NTIA may also request data from recipients. Agencies report back at close-out with each sensor’s make and model, hours in use, detections, distinct drones identified and criminal investigations opened from what the systems found.
One of FEMA’s long-term targets is to launch criminal investigations on 100% of identified violations where an operator endangers the public, violates established airspace restrictions or uses a drone in another crime.
DroneXL’s Take
The detection money is easy to defend. Radar finds the aircraft. A Remote ID receiver tells an officer where the pilot is standing. After the World Cup, Willoughby told reporters that federal teams talked to nearly every operator whose drone was seized, since intent is never known until someone asks.
FEMA’s scorecard points somewhere else. A program goal of a criminal investigation for every airspace violation counts cases opened as success, and every close-out report has to tally them. Federal agencies seized more than 700 drones at the World Cup and arrested about a dozen people, and I suspect that ratio means most violators were careless rather than dangerous, the hobbyist who wandered into a TFR with a Mini. FEMA’s separate goal of sorting 90% of detected drones into commercial, recreational or malicious is the right instinct, and I’d grade the whole program on threats stopped and pilots educated. A pilot who busts an Olympic or torch relay TFR in 2028 should assume a county sensor logged the Remote ID and that the case count is part of how the program gets judged.
Sources: FEMA FY 2027 C-UAS Grant Program NOFO, FEMA Tranche 2 Fact Sheet, FEMA C-UAS Grant Program, DRONERESPONDERS, Homeland Security Today.
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
