Dive Brief:
- Congress is once again considering preempting state and local laws regulating AI, this time with language included within the upcoming National Defense Reauthorization Act, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Punchbowl News late last month.
- The comments prompted a wave of opposition, including a letter from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers and one signed by 280 state lawmakers urging Congress to reject any moratorium on state-level AI regulations.
- “A blanket prohibition on state and local AI and automated decision-system regulation would abruptly cut off active democratic debate in statehouses and impose a sweeping pause on policymaking at the very moment when communities are seeking responsive solutions,” state lawmakers wrote.
Dive Insight:
President Donald Trump has pledged to make the U.S. the global leader in AI innovation. He has claimed in executive orders that to do that, red tape surrounding the emerging technology must be trimmed.
So far, Congress has disagreed.
The Senate rejected a measure in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have preempted state governance over AI in a 99-1 vote earlier this year.
“That vote sent a clear, bipartisan message: Congress should not freeze state and local AI safeguards, least of all when there are no meaningful federal protections in place,” Democratic representatives wrote in a letter to congressional leadership Nov. 26. NASCIO Executive Director Doug Robinson warned in that organization’s letter to Congress that such legislation “would in effect strip states of the ability to address real AI risks in their communities.”
California became the first state to impose wide-ranging legislation over AI this year, and Robinson noted 45 states already have laws criminalizing AI-generated or computer-edited child sexual abuse material.
“Proponents of the ban on state AI laws claim it is necessary to protect innovation, but that gets the tradeoff exactly backwards,” Democratic representatives wrote in their letter. “We strongly support innovation, and it is simply wrong to accept the premise that identifying and addressing AI-specific risks, and setting common-sense guardrails, is incompatible with U.S.leadership in AI.”
