Big Beautiful Bill AI moratorium unites unlikely group of critics

Critics as varied as Marjorie Taylor Greene and the NAACP have come out against the rule, which would prevent states from passing AI regulations for 10 years.

As Senate Republicans rush to pass their hodgepodge tax and spending package — the “Big, Beautiful Bill” — controversy has arisen around an unusual provision: a 10-year moratorium on states passing their own laws regulating artificial intelligence.

Congress has been slow to pass any regulation on AI, a rapidly evolving technology, leaving states to write their own laws. Those state laws largely focus on preventing specific harms, like banning the use deepfake technology to create nonconsensual pornography, to mislead voters about specific issues or candidates or to mimic music artists’ voices without permission.

Some major companies that lead the U.S. AI industry have argued that a mix of state laws needlessly hamstrings the technology, especially as the U.S. seeks to compete with China. But a wide range of opposition — including some prominent Republican lawmakers, child safety advocates and civil rights groups — say states are a necessary bulwark against a dangerous technology that can cause unknown harms within the next decade.

The Trump administration has been clear that it wants to loosen the reins on AI’s expansion. During his first week in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ease regulations on the technology and revoke “existing AI policies and directives that act as barriers to American AI innovation.

And in February, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech at an AI summit in Paris that made clear that the Trump administration wanted to prioritize AI dominance over regulation.