A group of Republican state lawmakers on Thursday assailed a plan from the GOP majority in Congress to impose a 10-year moratorium on the enforcement of state and local artificial intelligence regulations.
“Our founders created the states as learning laboratories of the nation, and when the federal government intervenes or interferes, it’s a constitutional issue. It’s not simply a nuisance,” Utah Sen. Heidi Balderree (R) said at a virtual press conference.
Balderree was one of eight Republican state lawmakers who participated in the event hosted by Americans for Responsible Innovation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that focuses on AI’s harms, emerging risks and impacts to national security. The lawmakers emphasized that states have a role to play in both encouraging AI innovation and regulating the burgeoning industry.
States across the country have moved to regulate AI. More than 1,000 bills on the issue were introduced this year, according to tracking by government affairs firm MultiState.
Colorado last year enacted the nation’s first comprehensive law governing high-risk decision-making systems. Texas lawmakers this year passed a regulatory framework that places obligations on both public and private sector uses of AI.
Tennessee lawmakers passed a first-in-the-nation law in 2024 to protect singers and songwriters from having AI steal their work and likenesses.
“It’s really important that states defend their right to regulate this industry because it has particular impact at the local level,” Tennessee Sen. Bo Watson (R) said Thursday.
The U.S. House passed a version of the AI regulation moratorium last month as part of President Trump’s spending bill. The Senate could vote on revised language that ties states’ receipt of federal broadband infrastructure dollars to compliance with what bill writers now term a “temporary pause” on AI regulations. Trump has said he wants the bill passed by July 4.
Utah Rep. Doug Fiefia (R), who spent five years at Google, said a decade is “a lifetime in technology.”
The lawmakers participating in the virtual session repeatedly returned to the idea that states should lead on public policy and that Congress can learn from that work.
“They shouldn’t put handcuffs on the laboratories that the states are,” Wisconsin Rep. Dan Knodl (R) said. “We can do a lot of the heavy lifting for them.”
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) on Thursday joined the chorus of calls for Congress to remove the AI moratorium language from the bill, which she said she otherwise supports.
“We must curb AI’s worst excesses while also encouraging its growth, which is exactly what states like mine are doing,” Sanders wrote on X, noting that she signed a law this year to address deepfake pornography.
States are also moving to regulate the use of AI in specific sectors such as employment, health care and housing. And they are addressing companion chatbots in an attempt to protect vulnerable users, including teenagers.
South Carolina Rep. Brandon Guffey (R), who chairs an AI regulation subcommittee, warned that children will die if states can’t regulate AI. He cited the case of a Florida teen who died by suicide after engaging heavily with an AI companion.
Guffey said he wants to support AI innovation in his state, but “if this passes, my first plan is to pass regulations on AI just to challenge it in court.”
The other press conference participants were Montana Sen. Barry Usher (R), Ohio Sen. Louis Blessing (R) and Wisconsin Rep. Shannon Zimmerman (R).
Earlier this month, Americans for Responsible Innovation coordinated a bipartisan letter from 260 state legislators to Congress opposing federal interference in AI regulation enforcement. In May, 40 state attorneys general sent a similar letter.
Under the latest Senate proposal, states would be prohibited for 10 years from enforcing any law “limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems” that operate beyond a single state.
The moratorium would not apply to laws that aim to “remove legal impediments” to the deployment of such systems or that make it easier to get AI licensed and permitted. It would also exempt laws that don’t place “substantive” requirements on AI models.
States that refuse to comply would lose access to funds through the Biden-era Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, which was created as part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
The Senate parliamentarian asked the Commerce Committee to ensure the bill is clear that only $500 million in new funding for AI infrastructure could be affected, not all $42.5 billion in broadband funds, Politico reported Thursday.
Democratic state lawmakers are also weighing in. Connecticut Sen. James Maroney (D), a national leader on AI regulation, said in a statement Thursday that the proposed moratorium is “a significant overreach into states rights” and it would prevent states from being able to protect children, address deepfakes, regulate self-driving cars and enforce existing data privacy laws.
State lawmakers say they are communicating their concerns to their congressional delegations, noting broad public opposition to the idea of a moratorium.
The tech industry along with venture capitalists and free market think tanks are broadly supporting the AI moratorium.
Amy Bos, director of state and federal affairs for NetChoice, a leading tech industry group that has sued states over tech-related regulations, said Thursday that a “temporary pause on state AI regulation gives Congress the room to develop clear, consistent and nationwide policies that protect Americans while empowering our innovators to thrive.”