The senator voted to remove the controversial 10-year suspension on artificial intelligence state regulation early Tuesday from President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill,” marking a major defeat for the tech industry, which worked hard to lobby to maintain sweeping tax and spending package provisions.
Lawmakers voted 99-1 in the overnight session by adopting an amendment submitted by Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn, and had previously been broken with her party over her issues.
Companies such as Openai and Google have previously argued in favor of blocking AI regulations.
However, both left and right critics said the AI moratorium, previously approved by the House, was an attempt to prevent attempts to regulate new AI systems before they could. Many also pointed out that Congress has not passed any important new technical rules in decades. This means that a state’s ban on AI regulations could effectively mean there are no AI regulations at all.
Read more: Why AI regulations have become a problem with “state” rights
The version rejected by the Senate was previously paraphrased to meet budgetary rules by accepting funds from a $500 million infrastructure program conditioned on the acceptance of a moratorium.
Most Democrats opposed the moratorium, so Republicans couldn’t afford to lose many members of their party on the issue. But they faced resistance from Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, especially Blackburn.
Earlier in the week, Blackburn tried to forge a compromise with Ted Cruz, who led the regulations. Together, they reduced the 10-year ban to five years and created a new version that carved out exceptions to the law related to the online safety of children and the right to publicize individuals.
However, a version of the bill was immediately expended by the vocal coalition of both parties. A group of 140 largely left-leaning advocacy organizations, including Encode AI and Common Sense Media, have written an open letter claiming that this new version actually protected tech companies from state regulations Blackburn is trying to protect. “The ambiguous standards listed in the moratorium will provide a clear pathway to the greatest techniques to challenge almost every state law in court,” the letter read.
Blackburn received an equally unfortunate call from the power player on the right. Stephen Bannon said on his Warroom podcast that he called Blackburn himself about hitting a moratorium that he deemed to be at risk for the nation’s rights. Angela Paxton, a Texas Senator and an influential member of the Maga movement, hit hard against the provisions, as did attorney Mike Davis, the founder of the conservative judicial advocacy group Project III.
In the end, Blackburn decides to abandon the moratorium altogether. And when it became clear that it had no numbers, the Republican wings dropped the idea completely. Republican Sen. Tom Tillis is the only member of lawmakers to vote to maintain the bill’s moratorium, and his vote happened after 4am, but was a mistake, says someone with knowledge of the matter.
“This provision could allow Big Tech to continue exploiting children, creators and conservatives,” Blackburn told Wired. “We cannot prevent states from enacting laws that protect citizens until Congress passes federal preemptive laws like the Children’s Online Safety Act and the Online Privacy Framework,” a senator’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats also welcomed the results of the vote. “This 99-1 vote sent a clear message that Congress could not sell out our children and communities to fill the pockets of big tech billionaires,” Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey said in a statement. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to develop responsible guardrails for AI.”
The removal of the AI moratorium from the budget bill was welcomed by AI safety experts. “The Senate’s overwhelming rejection of this massive high-tech power grab highlights the massive, bipartisan opposition to getting AI companies to run AMOK,” said Max Tegmark, president of the non-profit Future of Life Institute on AI Safety, in a statement. “The CEOs of these companies admit they have no control over the very systems they are building, but they still demand immunity from meaningful surveillance. This threatens families and jobs across the United States, and the Senate was wise to reject it.”
A slightly larger budget bill passed Tuesday afternoon and sent back home. House Republicans can try to resurface AI regulations, but many of them seem to focus on other issues, particularly deficits and Medicaid cuts.
Updated July 2, 2025:
The original version of this story mistook the last name for a Massachusetts Senator. It’s a marquee, not a marquee.
Updated July 1, 2025:
This story has been updated to reflect breaking news.
