Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has yanked a controversial component of President Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ that would ban all states from enforcing laws or regulations related to AI for a total of 10 years.
Blackburn’s proposal to erase the ban passed with flying colors, with a 99-1 vote.
This marks a massive loss for Silicon Valley leaders and White House officials alike who advocated for the measure.
Companies that pushed the measure include Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc., as well as venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz. Trump Silicon Valley allies such as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Anduril Industries Inc. founder Palmer Luckey and Palantir Technologies Inc. co-founder Joe Lonsdale all wanted the restriction as well, according to Bloomberg.
Palantir and the Trump admin are quite familiar — company co-founder Peter Thiel is notably a mentor and longtime friend of Vice President JD Vance.
Uporar ensued, leading Blackburn and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to accept a modified version that hopes to safeguard children and artists by shortening the ban from 10 years to 5, The Tennessean reports.
“For as long as I’ve been in Congress, I’ve worked alongside federal and state legislators, parents seeking to protect their kids online, and the creative community in Tennessee to fight back against Big Tech’s exploitation by passing legislation to govern the virtual space,” Blackburn said in a statement.
Tennessee notably became the first state to create protections for artists from misuse of artificial intelligence in July of last year, via the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act (ELVIS).
“While I appreciate Chairman Cruz’s efforts to find acceptable language that allows states to protect their citizens from the abuses of AI, the current language is not acceptable to those who need these protections the most,” Blackburn explained in her statement.
“This provision could allow Big Tech to continue to exploit kids, creators, and conservatives. Until Congress passes federally preemptive legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act and an online privacy framework, we can’t block states from making laws that protect their citizens.”
Over 1,000 AI bills have been proposed at the state level, Bloomberg reports.
“The moratorium threatened to halt kids online safety laws, artist and creator protections, and a range of consumer safeguards and tech transparency measures, all without any federal replacement,” said Brad Carson, president of the AI safety advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation. “Let this be a lesson to Congress — freezing state AI laws without a serious replacement is a political nonstarter.”
Members of the tech industry are likely to continue their push for banning state AI legislation, per the outlet.
The only Senate lawmaker who supported keeping the AI provision in the aforementioned vote was Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced on Sunday that he plans to retire from the Senate.
