For the past several years, states have been trying to regulate the burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Out of the 635 AI-related bills considered in 2024, nearly 100 were signed into law, and 1,000 more bills have been proposed this year. A federal law that would prevent the proliferation of reactionary local AI regulation passed a key hurdle toward its potential implementation on Saturday.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation released its budget reconciliation text on June 5, which includes the language imposing a moratorium on state AI legislation. The Senate parliamentarian, the nonpartisan official in charge of interpreting Senate rules, decided on Saturday that the moratorium does not violate the Byrd rule, which blocks all non-budgetary matters from inclusion in reconciliation bills, and may be passed by a simple majority via the budget reconciliation process.
The section conditions the receipt of federal funding from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program on compliance with a 10-year pause on local AI regulation. Reason's Joe Lancaster explains that BEAD "authorized more than $42 billion in grants, to 'connect everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by the end of the decade.'" BEAD was part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law in November 2021. By June 2024, BEAD had "not connected even 1 person with those funds," said Brendan Carr, chair (then-commissioner) of the Federal Communications Commission. In March, President Donald Trump paused the program.
