by In the early Tuesday, the senators voted to remove a controversial 10-year moratorium for the state regulation of artificial secret services from President Trump’s “a big beautiful draft law”, which made a significant defeat for a tech industry that was difficult to keep the provision in the comprehensive tax and expenditure package.
The legislators voted 99: 1 in a night session to remove the provision by adopting a change from Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, who had previously broken with her party because of the problem.
Companies like Openai and Google had previously triggered the support of blocking states from the regulation of the AI - to avoid what they said, a patchwork of rules that could hinder innovations.
However, critics left and right said that the AI moratorium, which had previously been approved by the house, was an attempt to prevent any attempt to regulate new AI systems. Many also found that the congress has not passed significant new technical rules for decades -which means that a ban on state AI regulations could effectively mean no AI regulation.
Read more: Why AI regulation has become a topic of “states” rights
The version rejected by the Senate was previously reorganized to meet the budget regulations by accepting the financing through a 500 million dollar -infrastructure program that was dependent on the acceptance of the moratorium.
Since most democrats opposed the moratorium, the Republicans could not afford to lose many members of their party on this topic. But they confronted the Senator of Missouri, Josh Hawley, the Senator of Kentucky Rand Paul, and in particular Blackburn, who, given their base in Nashville, was very loud for AI protection for both children online and for the music industry.
At the beginning of the week, Blackburn tried to make a compromise with Ted Cruz who led the supply. Together they produced a new version that reduced the ten-year ban on a 1-year existence and has excluded exceptions to laws in connection with online security and personal advertising for children.
However, this version of the invoice was immediately thought of in both parties by coalitions of voting coalitions. A group of 140 mostly left-wing representative organizations, including Codes AI and Common Sense Media, wrote an open letter in which it was argued that this new version actually protected tech companies from the state regulation that Blackburn tried to protect. “The vague standards defined in the moratorium will offer Big Tech a clear way in order to question almost every state law in court,” says the letter.
Blackburn also received unfortunate calls from Power players on the right. Steven Bannon said in his warroom podcast that he described Blackburn himself because of the moratorium, which he saw as the rights of the state. Angela Paxton, a senator and influential member of the Maga movement in Texas, went violently against the destination, as did lawyer Mike Davis, the founder of the conservative project for the legal group, Article III.
Ultimately, Blackburn decided to give up the moratorium as a whole. And when it became clear that it didn’t have the numbers, the Republican wing dropped the idea completely. Republican Senator Thom Tillis was the only legislator who voted to keep the moratorium in the legislative template and his voice – which happened after 4 a.m. – was a mistake, says someone with knowledge of the matter.
“This provision could enable Big Tech to continue to take advantage of children, creators and conservatives,” said Blackburnshe. “Until the congress such as the online security law for children and an online data protection framework is adopted, we cannot prevent states from protecting laws that protect their citizens.” A representative of the senator did not immediately answer a request for a comment.
Democrats also welcomed the result of the vote. “This 99: 1 vote has sent a clear message that the congress will not sell our children and local communities in order to pack the pockets of the Big Tech billionaires,” said Ed Marey, Democrat of Massachusetts. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to develop responsibility for AI.”
The removal of the AI moratorium from the household bill was welcomed by AI security experts. “The overwhelming rejection of this great tech power by the Senate underlines the massive non-partisan opposition to AI company” Amok “,” said Max Tegmark, President of the non-profit Future Future of Life Institute, which is committed to AI security. “The CEOs of these companies have admitted that they cannot control the systems they can build, and yet they demand immunity to a meaningful supervision. This threatens families and jobs across America, and the Senate was wise to reject it.”
The larger budget bill was narrowly adopted on Tuesday afternoon and was sent back into the house. House Republicans could try to exceed the AI again, but it seems that many of them focus on other problems, especially the deficit and the cuts of Medicaid.
Update, July 1, 2025:
This story has been updated to reflect Breaking News Reflect.
