By John P. Desmond, Editor, AI in Business

The US House in May approved a budget bill included a 10-year ban on state regulation of AI that polls are showing two weeks later is wildly unpopular among Republican and Democratic voters.

Skepticism was high immediately after the vote that the regulation ban would survive a Senate review. “I don’t know whether it will pass the Byrd Rule,” stated Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in an account from AP. The Byrd Rule, named after former Senator Robert Bryd, prevents budget reconciliation bills from including provisions considered “extraneous” to the budget, so they cannot become vehicles for unrelated policy changes.

“That sounds to me like a policy change. I’m not going to speculate what the parliamentarian is going to do, but I think it is unlikely to make it,” Cornyn stated.

While Senators of both parties have expressed interest in regulating AI and scores of bills have been introduced, few have made meaningful progress in a divided Congress. In the absence of federal policy, states have taken the lead.

Half of all US states have enacted legislation to regulate AI deepfakes in political campaigns, according to Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer rights advocacy group. Most of them were passed in the last year in response to incidents in democratic elections around the globe in 2024, in which lifelike AI audio clips, videos and images were used to deceive voters.

California state Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat who has authored legislation in the last year that would have created first-in-the-nation safety measures for AI models, called the Republican proposal “truly gross” in a social media post. “Congress is incapable of meaningful AI regulation to protect the public. It is, however, quite capable of failing to act while also banning states from acting,” Wiener stated. His bill passed the California legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

CEO Altman Hopes for ‘Light Touch’

In a US Senate hearing held in May, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who two years ago testified on the need for AI regulation, stated that a “patchwork” of state regulations “would be quite burdensome and [would] significantly impair our ability to do what we need to do.” He added, “One federal framework, that is a light touch, that we can understand and that lets us move with the speed that this moment calls for seems important and fine,” Altman told Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican.

During discussion and refinement of the AI ban proposal by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republicans argued for a pause in state regulation of AI. “Right now, there are over a thousand bills on the topic of AI regulation pending in state legislatures across the country,” stated Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), in an account from The Hill.

Vice President J.D. Vance in February slammed what he called “excessive” regulations of AI, while Trump rolled back former President Biden’s AI executive orders that in his view hampered innovation.

The House Task Force on AI released a report at the end of last year that proposed a federal regulatory framework. Rep. Obernolte, the co-leader of the task force, expressed frustration that Congress has not moved on this. “Congress needs to get its act together and codify some of the things in this report,” he stated, arguing that the moratorium on regulation would give Congress time to get the job done.

But many Democrats argue a moratorium would risk harm to consumers in the absence of a federal standard. Rep. Scott Peters, Democrat of California, stated, ““We don’t have a standard that we’re offering, and I think the moratorium is too long. We should be able to do it in a much shorter period of time.”

‘Abdication of Responsibility’ to support ban

Enactment of a 10-year ban on state regulation of AI would amount to an “abdication of responsibility” by Congress, argued authors Kara Williams and Ben Winters in a recent account in Tech Policy Press. Williams is a law fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, focused on state privacy and AI policy. William is the director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America.

“At a time when Americans are being harmed by the use of AI systems, it is an abdication of responsibility for Congress to propose eliminating states’ rights to protect their residents,” stated the authors. “America should strive to win the race of responsible innovation, not innovation at any cost. We need innovation we can all be proud of. We are all living with the consequences of Congress’s failure to regulate social media companies for decades, and we cannot repeat that mistake with AI—the stakes are too high.”

Ban Would Prevent State Regulation of AVs

The House bill’s ban on AI regulation would prevent states from governing the use of self-driving cars, which federal data shows have been responsible for thousands of crashes and multiple deaths over the past four years, according to a recent account in The American Prospect.

No federal regulations are in place for the use of driverless cars; a ban on state regulation would leave them unregulated. “It’s really quite lucky that there haven’t been more fatalities and injuries, considering the lack of rules and regulation,” stated Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety President Catherine Chase.

As of the end of 2024, 34 states and the District of Columbia had enacted autonomous vehicle regulation, which vary widely in their requirements. A California regulation requires that manufacturers maintain a dedicated emergency telephone line, for example.

Reporting requirements for AV crash data have been relaxed under the Trump Administration through amendments to rules from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Crashes have increased steadily since 2021, with 544 driverless car crashes last year, and in the first four months of this year, have a risk to over half that, the Prospect account reported.

“We do expect, unfortunately, that autonomous vehicles are going to be more widespread,” Chase said.

“The roads will get more dangerous,” stated Chase. “There has been a push for AVs to be on the roads because there’s a lot of money being invested into research and development, but they by and large have not been monetized on a wide-scale basis, and there’s pressure to start making money.”

A recent poll of 1,022 voters nationwide conducted by Echelon Insights, commissioned by Common Sense Media, showed widespread opposition to the proposed 10-year ban on AI regulation, from both Republicans and Democrats.

“What we see in this data is really striking in its bipartisanship,” stated Echelon Insights Founding Partner Kristen Soltis Anderson during a press briefing on the results reported by GovTech. The results focused mainly on supporting child safety, with 78 percent of Republicans and 86 percent of Democrats responding opposing the ban.

Preventing states from passing and enforcing AI laws is “irresponsible and completely indefensible,” stated Jim Steyer, Common Sense Media founder and CEO. “Not only does it infringe upon basic states’ rights — it stops states from regulating AI and other forms of tech and media without putting any federal protections in place,” Steyer stated.

Read the source articles and information from AP, The Hill, Tech Policy Press, The American Prospect and GovTech.