The AI provision has divided Republicans into two camps: one touting the party’s traditional support of states’ rights, and another concerned with overbearing regulation.
As the Senate works out its own changes to the larger tax and spending package, an increasing number of Republicans from both chambers are coming out against the AI provision, which calls for a 10-year moratorium on state laws regulating AI models and systems.
Republicans opposed to the measure differ in their opinions of AI and how beneficial it could be, but share concerns with the federal government stifling the ability of states to set their own rules for it.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), one of the most vocal GOP critics of Trump’s broader bill, said Tuesday he is “not a real fan of the federal government” and is against the provision.
“I personally don’t think we should be setting a federal standard right now and prohibiting the states from doing what we should be doing in a federated republic. Let the states experiment,” Johnson said.
While Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has expressed concerns about the economic impact of AI, he said he is willing to introduce an amendment to eliminate the provision during the Senate’s marathon vote-a-rama if it is not taken out earlier.
“I’m only for AI if it’s good for the people,” he told reporters, citing AI’s potential disruptive impact on the job market. “I think we’ve got to come up with a way to put people first.”
Even some House Republicans who already voted to pass the bill in the lower chamber are speaking out against the provision.
A group of hardline conservatives argued in a letter last week to Senate Republicans that Congress is still “actively investigating” AI and “does not fully understand the implications” of the technology.
This was shortly after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) confirmed she would be a “no” on the bill if it comes back to the House with the provision included.
“I am 100 percent opposed and I will not vote for any bill that destroys federalism and takes away states’ rights, ability to regulate and make laws when it regards humans and AI,” the Georgia Republican said.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) declined to say whether he would support the moratorium but noted he “likes states’ rights.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, rejected concerns the moratorium could encroach on states’ rights, pointing to the Commerce Clause in the Constitution.
“The Constitution,” Cruz said, “gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce between the states and AI is quintessentially commerce between the states and having a patchwork of 50 different standards crippling the development of AI.”
The battle comes just over a month after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other tech leaders appeared before Cruz’s committee and voiced their opposition to state-by-state regulation of AI.
Read more in a full report Wednesday morning at TheHill.com.
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