A new draft bill that would regulate some of the most advanced artificial intelligence tools was released for public comment by Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte of California and Democratic Rep. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts on Thursday.
The Obernolte-Trahan bill, dubbed the Great American AI Act, would ask large AI developers to keep the government informed about the development of its frontier models, make plans to mitigate the most severe harms to cybersecurity, and allow auditors to ensure those plans are followed.
And while all of that may sound reasonable to people who want to make sure AI doesn’t go all Skynet on us—or just ensure it isn’t used by rogue actors to dismantle important cyber or financial infrastructure—the proposed federal legislation is controversial for one big reason: It would preempt some of the laws already passed at the state level.
As Politico notes, the bill would also create the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), an office in the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, to evaluate frontier models for the next three years. President Donald Trump’s executive order on AI earlier this week sought to establish the office, but it has no funding without congressional approval. The law would allocate $300 million for the effort.
“The threats AI poses to our national security, our safety, and our workforce are here and growing by the day,” Rep. Trahan said in a statement posted online.
“This bipartisan framework is designed to meet the challenges posed by this rapidly advancing technology without smothering American innovation,” Trahan continued. “It protects workers, establishes real accountability for the most powerful frontier systems, and positions the United States to set the global standard on AI.”
Obernolte released a statement as well, emphasizing that it’s important that any legislation on AI be bipartisan and stressing that input from other parties was welcome.
“This discussion draft is an important step toward building a clear federal framework that promotes innovation, protects Americans from emerging risks, and ensures the United States continues to lead the world in AI,” said Obernolte. “We are releasing this draft to hear from stakeholders, experts, and the public so we can strengthen the legislation before it is formally introduced.”
Other members of Congress from both parties are prepared to sign on to the draft bill, according to a press release, including Democrats Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia and Scott Peters of California, as well as Republicans Scott Franklin of Florida and Erin Houchin of Indiana.
Elected Republicans have generally been more in favor of allowing AI companies to operate without any kind of government restraint, but Democrats and Republicans alike are still trying to understand what the best regulatory path forward might be in the face of threats to millions of jobs or massive security vulnerabilities.
Sometimes, elected politicians play against their party’s stereotype on AI. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, vetoed legislation that would’ve regulated AI in 2024 in a move widely seen as a way to protect OpenAI. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has been a vocal critic of AI, even proposing a Citizen Bill of Rights for Artificial Intelligence late last year.
On Thursday, the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen called the proposed Great American AI Act a “disastrous proposal” that Big Tech is “celebrating.” J.B. Branch, AI governance and technology policy counsel at Public Citizen, said the bill does nothing to address topics like algorithmic discrimination, consumer fraud, youth mental health harms, AI companions, and deepfakes.
“At a time when states have led efforts to address AI-generated harms, Congress is proposing to take those tools away,” said Branch. “Rather than establishing strong federal safeguards, the bill would preempt state action and defer to future federal testing, evaluation, and oversight frameworks that do not yet exist and will likely be impossible to pass in a divided Congress.”
The Tech Oversight Project also released new surveys Thursday of people who live in the districts of Rep. Obernolte (CA-23) and Rep. Trahan (MA-3), showing that majorities in both are skeptical of laws that might weaken state-level protections against AI.
According to the group, 56% of Obernolte’s constituents oppose the congressman’s “efforts to weaken California’s AI laws governing catastrophic risk.” And 63% of Trahan’s constituents feel the same way about local laws.
“The Obernolte-Trahan bill replaces a state floor with a federal ceiling and trades away existing and future child safety, civil rights, and consumer protection laws for nothing in return,” Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project, said in a statement to Gizmodo.
Haworth argues that the proposed bill allows companies like OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Anthropic more power by requiring less oversight than local restrictions already passed in states like California and New York. And even those laws were passed with consultation from the AI companies, rendering them relatively weak.
“Big Tech has a long, storied history of exploiting vague, opaque legislative language to evade transparency and accountability, and if the Obernolte-Trahan bill passes, it will grant Big Tech companies massive amnesty where there wasn’t one before and rob the public of being able to use every tool possible to shape how AI affects our lives,” said Haworth.
“It is our sincere hope that Democrats and Republicans alike stop this AI amnesty bill from moving forward.”
Obernolte and Trahan are encouraging people to submit feedback on the proposed bill to the email address: [email protected].
