The Senate voted overwhelmingly, 99 to 1, to strike the provision in the “Big Beautiful Bill” that would have imposed a decade-long moratorium on attempts by states to regulate AI.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A proposal to deter states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade was soundly defeated in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, thwarting attempts to insert the measure into President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts.
The Senate voted 99-1 to strike the AI provision from the legislation after weeks of criticism from both Republican and Democratic governors and state officials.
Originally proposed as a 10-year ban on states doing anything to regulate AI, lawmakers later tied it to federal funding so that only states that backed off on AI regulations would be able to get subsidies for broadband internet or AI infrastructure.
A last-ditch Republican effort to save the provision would have reduced the time frame to five years and sought to exempt some favored AI laws, such as those protecting children or country music performers from harmful AI tools.