A congressional push, backed by President Trump, to pass federal legislation preempting state-level artificial intelligence regulations appears to be going nowhere.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.) said on Tuesday that AI regulatory preemption will not be part of the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill to fund the Pentagon, a major defeat for the AI industry and the Trump administration.
The NDAA “wasn’t the best place” for the preemption, Scalise told reporters. He left open the possibility of putting it in another legislative vehicle at a later date. His comments came after House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R., Ala.) said the moratorium on state AI regulation would not make it into the NDAA.
“From what I hear, it’s kind of lost its momentum. It doesn’t have enough support,” Rogers told Politico.
Trump endorsed the preemption plan last month after Scalise floated the possibility of including it in the NDAA, a must-pass bill in which lawmakers often insert other legislative priorities in addition to defense policy.
“We MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes. If we don’t, then China will easily catch us in the AI race. Put it in the NDAA, or pass a separate Bill, and nobody will ever be able to compete with America,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Trump’s backing revitalized congressional interest in federal preemption of AI regulation after Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) failed to get it into the GOP’s budget megabill over the summer. Cruz’s proposal to ban state AI safeguards was voted down, 99–1, after a bipartisan push led by GOP Senate colleague Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), a seminal moment for the bipartisan AI safety movement.
Dozens of state lawmakers and a handful of governors from both parties came out against the possibility of stuffing into a must-pass piece of legislation a ban on state-level AI regulation. Democratic and Republican congressional lawmakers also called it a nonstarter, making its passage unlikely from the outset.
“Good. This is a terrible provision and should remain OUT,” Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said on social media on Tuesday, in response to Scalise’s comments.
MAGA populists and social conservatives were among those opposed to including AI regulatory preemption in the NDAA. Lawmakers are expected to release the House’s NDAA bill later this week.
Separately, the Trump administration drafted an executive order to potentially follow through on Trump’s promise, but the order appears to have been scrapped after it was widely covered in the media.
Leading the Future, an AI-industry-backed political organization, launched a $10 million lobbying campaign to push for a preemption tied to a federal framework for regulating AI. The specifics of the federal framework were unclear. Behind the scenes, Cruz and Scalise were proposing a moratorium on state AI regulations without federal guidelines attached to it, Axios reported.
Proponents of barring state AI regulations and adopting a federal framework believe that doing so would make things easier for businesses, which would have to navigate a single suite of federal rules rather than a patchwork of state laws. They also argue that Democratic-run states that implement harsh AI regulations would dictate terms for the rest of the country, given California’s status as the nation’s hub for innovative technologies.
To counter Leading the Future’s effort, AI safety advocates have launched a $50 million bipartisan super PAC network. AI safety advocates argue that commonsense regulations are necessary to protect children, mitigate risk, encourage corporate transparency, and prevent China from stealing American technology.
This battle over AI regulation is unlikely to be Washington’s last, especially with money pouring into both sides of the issue.