(NewsNation) — The House Intelligence Committee had a classified briefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday over the drone sightings in New Jersey and across the eastern United States, but lawmakers were left with more questions than answers.
Several lawmakers told NewsNation they believe there needs to be new legislation to better monitor drones in U.S. airspace, as well as to decide what can be flown there.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is pushing for a bill to give local authorities more power to respond to and track drones as well.
“We’re actually reasonably good, but we can be better about monitoring restricted airspace,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn.,said after Tuesday’s briefing.
Intelligence officials and FBI officials say there’s no threat in our night skies. Federal authorities said Monday evening that sightings have been identified as legal commercial drones, hobbyist drones, law enforcement drones, as manned aircraft, helicopters and even stars.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday night as he headed to Deleware, President Joe Biden said officials are “following this closely, but so far, no sense of danger.”
“Nothing nefarious apparently, but they’re checking it all out,” he said.
Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., echoed these sentiments.
“I think the FBI, the intelligence community, is taking this very seriously, is looking at every report, and to date, there’s no evidence that there’s anything nefarious going on,” Bera said.
Michael Melham, the mayor of Belleville, New Jersey floated the idea that the drones might be connected to radioactive material in an interview with “Good Day New York.” He reiterated these claims on “Morning in America” Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported radioactive material contained in medical equipment used for cancer scans was lost in transit. On Dec. 3, an an Eckert & Ziegler model HEGL-0132 device was sent for disposal from Nazha Cancer Center in Newfield New Jersey. However, the shipping container it was in arrived at its destination “damaged and empty,” according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“We know we have drones flying in a grid-like pattern. In my opinion, they’re looking for something,” Melham said on “Good Day New York.” “What might they be looking for? Maybe that’s radioactive material.”
The Department of Energy and other officials told ABC News that Melham’s theory has been disproven. In addition, a doctor at the Nazha Cancer Center said to ABC that the missing material was found and disposed of properly.
Dr. James Dalzell told ABC the device was shipped by Fed-Ex, which temporarily misplaced it. The equipment was found later and sent to the manufacturer, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said. According to the NJDEP, drones were not used to locate the radioactive material, ABC wrote.
Former CIA operations officer Laura Ballman said on “Morning in America” that she has seen “0 evidence” that the drones are related to nuclear material.
“I would caution the public to be extremely skeptical of those kinds of theories,” Ballman said in an interview with NewsNation’s Markie Martin.
Melham said on NewsNation Wednesday that he wasn’t the one who brought up the radioactive material during the “Good Day New York” interview.
“I merely said that I believe (the government) is searching and sniffing something,” Melham said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that our federal government has assets that have the ability to know where something is on the ground.”
NewsNation anchor Markie Martin, Washington correspondent Kellie Meyer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
