The U.S. Department of Transportation is expanding its drone testing program, giving permission to 10 state, local and tribal governments to take part in a new pilot program that will test drones primarily as delivery vehicles.

Those given approval Tuesday to test delivery drones under the “Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot program” include a range of Universities and government departments from the inner 48 through to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks as well.

In most cases, the test approvals, while awarded to government bodies and colleges, involve participation with the private sector, such as FedEx Corp., Alphabet Inc., Intel Corp. and CNN. Notably, Amazon.com Inc., a company that has both pushed for and worked on developing delivery drones, was not one of the recipients. Founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post, a newspaper Trump supporters refer to as the “Washington Compost” because of its sometimes critical reporting on the administration.

“The UAS Integration Pilot Program will help tackle the most significant challenges to integrating drones into the national airspace and will reduce risks to public safety and security,” the Transportation Department said in a statement. “The program is a coordinated effort to provide certainty and stability to communities, drone owners and the rapidly evolving drone industry. In less than a decade, the potential economic benefit of integrating UAS in the nation’s airspace is estimated at $82 billion and could create 100,000 jobs.”

Although it’s possible to walk into just about any electronics store now and purchase a drone for a relatively small amount of money, the middle ground — that is, using drones for commercial delivery versus making YouTube videos or bombing people in the Middle East — has been a longstanding challenge.

Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Ltd., the Australian and New Zealand franchise of Domino’s Pizza Inc. made headlines back in 2016 with the world’s first drone pizza delivery. Since then, Amazon has tested drone deliveries in the U.K., but despite best efforts and promises of things to come, drone deliveries have yet to become mainstream primarily because of airspace regulations.

Photo: deepfrozen/Flickr