Which Laws Would the AI Moratorium Block (If It Survives)?
Key highlights this week:
We’re tracking 1,064 bills in all 50 states related to AI during the 2025 legislative session.
Hawaii enacted a law prohibiting the use of facial recognition software with any automated traffic enforcement system.
The Kentucky Artificial Intelligence Task Force met to hear from the business community this week.
And the Congressional efforts to preempt state and local AI laws have progressed, although the language has shifted, and with growing opposition, which is the topic of this week’s deep dive.
As we reported back in May, the Congressional budget reconciliation legislation (the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) heading towards the President’s desk includes a provision that would place a ten-year freeze on state regulation of artificial intelligence. However, to overcome the Bird Rule in the Senate, the AI moratorium has undergone significant changes and is not guaranteed to become law in its current form. This contentious measure cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate this week, but as it advances through the legislative process, the AI moratorium provision still faces scrutiny, and lawmakers’ concerns must be resolved if it is to survive. And if it is enacted, there are still many questions about which state and local laws it would potentially block, which is a question the courts will likely need to decide.
The version of the AI moratorium that we outlined in May was the original House version of the reconciliation bill (US HR 1). It would have imposed a ten-year moratorium on enforcement of any state or local law or regulation “limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce.” The provision is meant to curtail a perceived “patchwork” of different state laws, such as the AI regulation law in Colorado set to go into effect next year.
