WASHINGTON (AP) — A proposal in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to block 10 years of artificial intelligence regulations thwarted President Donald Trump’s attempt to insert measures into the president’s tax credit and spending cuts.
The Senate voted 99-1 to attack AI clauses from the law after weeks of criticism from both Republican and Democrat governors and state officials.
Originally proposed as a 10-year ban in states doing something to regulate AI, lawmakers later linked it to federal funds, allowing AI regulations to obtain subsidies for broadband internet or AI infrastructure.
The final Republican effort to preserve the provisions has sought to shorten the time frame to five years and exempt favourable AI laws, including protecting children and country music performers from harmful AI tools.
But that effort was abandoned when Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, worked with Democrat Sen. Maria Cantwell in Washington on Monday night to introduce amendments that would attack the entire proposal.
Blackburn said it was “frustrating” that Congress is unable to legislate emerging technologies, such as online privacy and “deepfakes” generated by AI-generated “deepfakes” that impersonate artists’ voices and visual portraits. “But do you know who passed it? It’s our state,” Blackburn said. “They are protecting children in virtual spaces. They are protecting our celebrities, names, images, portraits – broadcasters, podcasters, authors.”
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Republican leaders voted after 4am Tuesday as part of a one-night session, dodging other proposed amendments from Democrats, primarily Democrats, who are trying to beat the package.
Supporters of the AI Moratorium argued that a patchwork of state and local AI laws was hampering the advancement of the AI industry and the ability of US companies to compete with China.
Some prominent technical leaders welcomed the idea after Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican Sen. from Texas, who heads the Senate Commerce Committee, came to mind at a hearing in May. “It’s extremely difficult to imagine coming up with a way to comply with 50 different regulatory sets,” Openai CEO Sam Altman told Cruz.
However, state and local lawmakers and AI safety advocates argued that the rule is a gift for an industry who wants to avoid accountability for its products. Leading by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the majority of GOP Governors wrote to Congress against it.
Sanders, who was a White House spokesman for Trump’s first term, praised Blackburn for “leading the charges” to protect states’ rights to regulate AI.
“This is a monumental victory for the Republican governor, President Trump’s president, the big beautiful bill and the Americans,” Sanders wrote on X on Tuesday.
He also appealed to lawmakers to put the regulations on a group of parents of children who have died as a result of online harm.
“In the absence of federal actions, the moratorium gives AI companies exactly what they want. A license to develop and sell dangerous products with immunity — no rules or accountability,” Garcia says he pushed his 14-year-old son to commit suicide. “Moratorium gives businesses a free reins to create and launch products that sexually groom children and encourage suicide, as in the case of my dear boy.”
Over the weekend, Cruz tried to mediate a final groove compromise with Blackburn to preserve the clause. The changes included languages designed to protect children’s safety and Tennessee’s so-called Elvis laws. This is defended by Nashville’s country music industry and restricts AI tools from replicating artists’ voices without consent. Cruz said that if Blackburn hadn’t retreated it could have been “easy to pass.”
“When I spoke to President Trump last night, he said it was a great deal,” Cruz said. “The agreement protected children and protected the rights of creative artists, but external interests opposed the transaction.”
Blackburn said Tuesday there was a “language problem” with the revision.
Cruz retracted the compromise and denounced many people and groups who said they “didn’t want to suspend” including China, the Democratic California governor, teacher union leaders, and “including transgender groups and radical left-wing groups who want to use “blue state regulations” to mandate AI.”
He also does not mention a wide group of Republican state lawmakers, attorney generals and governors. Critics say Cruz’s proposal will affect the state enforcement of AI rules if it turns out to create “over or unbalanced burdens” on the AI system while shaping out some exemptions.
Even the cruise was eventually joined early on Tuesday to strip the proposal. Only Sen. Tom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who opposed Trump’s broader budget bill, voted against eliminating AI provisions.
“The proposed ban, now removed, would have stopped the state from protecting its residents while providing nothing at the federal level,” wrote Jim Steyer, founder and CEO of the child advocacy group Common Sense Media, in a statement. “In the end, 99 senators voted to strip the language when the moratorium appeared to have survived just a few hours ago.”
O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
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