Congress’ Plan to Break Up the Patchwork of State AI Laws
Key highlights this week:
We’re tracking 1,009 bills in all 50 states related to AI during the 2025 legislative session.
The Connecticut Senate passed a dramatically scaled-back version of Sen. Maroney’s SB 2, stripping many of the documentation requirements and obligations to mitigate discrimination risks.
The governor signed a sexual deepfake bill in South Carolina.
New York's governor signed a budget bill that includes a section regulating AI companion models.
And the U.S. House is moving a budget bill that includes a provision preempting enforcement of state AI laws for the next ten years, an existential threat to state lawmakers’ attempt to regulate the all-encompassing technology in a vacuum of a federal framework, which is the topic of this week’s deep dive.
For years, companies have pushed for federal preemption in consumer data privacy, to replace a growing patchwork of state laws with a single national standard more favorable to industry interests. But attempts to pass federal legislation have failed, leaving consumer data regulation to the states. With artificial intelligence, tech companies have found a new avenue to preempt potential state regulation through a sweeping ten-year moratorium on state AI regulation quietly embedded in the U.S. House budget reconciliation bill. If enacted, the measure would bar states from enforcing or enacting laws governing AI systems and automated decision-making tools, effectively freezing and negating state oversight.
This week, House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee submitted text to be included in the budget reconciliation bill that includes Section 43201, a ten-year moratorium on enforcement of any state or local law or regulation “regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems.”
