A provision that would impose a 10-year ban on state-level artificial intelligence regulation overcame a crucial Senate procedural hurdle to stay in Republicans’ reconciliation package.
But it’s unclear how big of a risk the provision, which several Republican senators opposed because of the power it would strip from states, is to the broader reconciliation package.
“I’m not a big fan of it,” Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the loudest GOP voices against the provision, told NOTUS. “All senators speak for themselves, but there’s some other opposition to it.”
Last month, Hawley vowed to kill the measure in the Senate after it passed in the House’s version of the legislation.
“We cannot prohibit states across the country from protecting Americans,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, another critic of the provision, told NOTUS in a statement. “For decades, Congress has proven incapable of passing legislation to govern the virtual space.”
Blackburn’s office did not comment on how this provision might ultimately sway her vote on the broader legislation.
Whether the provision would make it this far was in serious doubt given questions over if it complied with Senate rules that only allow budgetary measures to be included in a reconciliation bill. After changes to the provision’s language by Sen. Ted Cruz, who tied states’ compliance with the legislation to federal broadband funding, the measure ended up getting approval for inclusion.
Earlier this month, Hawley reportedly said he’s planning to introduce an amendment to remove the provision from the reconciliation bill. On Monday, he told NOTUS he didn’t know if there would be enough Republican support for his amendment to remove the provision.
When reporters asked on Monday if he would still try to strip the amendment out of the reconciliation bill, Hawley said that “all options are on the table.”
That didn’t seem to faze Cruz.
“I’m confident that the provision will remain in the final bill,” he told NOTUS.
The Senate still has to pass the reconciliation package and is in complicated negotiations to do so. In the meantime, one prominent Republican lawmaker in the House, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, has voiced consternation over the provision. She said earlier this month that if the AI provision stays in the legislation, she will vote no on the final product. She even said she would have voted against it when the House passed the package if she had realized the provision was included.
There are other lawmakers who, like Greene, are focused on different pieces of the legislation.
“I’ve been so focused on my lane that I haven’t paid attention to that,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin told NOTUS when asked if he supports the provision.
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Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.