May 22, 2025

Press Contact: Chris MacKenzie

chris@ari.us

Tax Bill Preempting State AI Laws Passes House

Preemption prevents states from enforcing laws and regulations that place safeguards on AI

This morning, the House passed the tax and budget bill with a vote of 215 to 214. A provision to preempt state laws and regulation on AI was included. Per this provision, no state or local government “may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decisions” for ten years. The bill must now be passed by the Senate where changes to the bill, and challenges to the provision under the Byrd Rule, are expected.

“Preventing state lawmakers from putting in place safeguards for AI, a transformative technology developing at a pace perhaps unlike any other in modern history, without putting any substantial safeguards in at the federal level, exposes the American people to current harms and a variety of unforeseeable future risks from AI systems,” said ARI President Brad Carson. “The arguments in favor of this provision only work if you believe that the federal government will soon pass broad guardrails to protect the public, or that AI will be a completely benign technology developed by companies that need no regulatory constraints. Given the federal government’s lack of action on other emerging tech issues in the past, and the emergence of new harms from this technology that we’re already seeing, it’s very difficult to justify this blanket state-level AI regulation moratorium.”

The preemption provision faces broad bipartisan opposition given its wide-ranging impact on hundreds of current and future laws. Forty state attorney generals signed a letter to Senate and House leadership on May 16, warning that the “impact of such a broad moratorium would be sweeping and wholly destructive of reasonable state efforts to prevent known harms associated with AI.” ARI also signed onto a letter, along with 140 organizations, urging Congress to reject this preemption provision.

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Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy advocacy in the public interest, focused on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI). Learn more at ARI.us.