H.R. 2205 — NEDD Act

This section amends the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (P.L. 118-31) to (1) exempt the Secretary of Energy from prohibitions on procurement (in §1823(b)), operation (in §1824(b)), and federal funding for procurement or operation (in §1825(b)) of covered unmanned aircraft systems from covered foreign entities (i.e., generally those linked to China); (2) authorize the Secretary of Energy, as appropriate, or designees to determine usage of classified UAS tracking (in §1827(b), replacing "the Secretary’s designee"); and (3) provide the Department of Energy an accounting exception (in §1827(c)). This section also expands the definition of covered facilities or assets under the Department of Energy's counter-unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) authority (50 U.S.C. 2661)—which allows detection, disruption, seizure, or destruction of UAS threatening nuclear facilities—to include any owned or contracted by the United States (i) to store, transport, or use special nuclear material (adding "transport") or (ii) for research, design, manufacture, or production of non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons (new).