House and Senate leadership should remove a part of President Donald Trump's "One, Big, Beautiful Bill" that bans states from passing laws and regulations related to artificial intelligence (AI), according to Governor Kay Ivey and 16 Republican governors.
The governors said the AI provision would "undo all the work states have done to protect our citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence."
Ivey and the 16 Republican governors said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Friday, "President Trump's One, Big, Beautiful Bill is a win for the American people, cutting taxes, moving welfare recipients off the path to dependency and onto the path to prosperity, growing the economy, and helping secure the border."
"While the legislation overall is very strong, there is one small portion of it that threatens to undo all the work states have done to protect our citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence. As Republican Governors, we are writing to encourage congressional leadership to strip this provision from the bill before it goes to President Trump's desk for his signature. In just the past year, states have led on smart regulations of the AI industry that simultaneously protect consumers while also encouraging this ever-developing and critical sector," Ivey and the governors said in the letter. "In Arkansas, for example, the Legislature created basic copyright guidelines for generative AI, protected Arkansans from the nonconsensual use of their likeness, and prohibited the creation of sexually explicit AI images of real people - especially children. Similarly, Utah law requires disclosure if someone is interacting with AI and creates other consumer protections. Other states have made or are in the process of creating similar reforms – commonsense changes that every state, and Congress, should get behind. As it's currently drafted, though, this provision added by Congress would prohibit these commonsense protections from going into effect for ten years, instead waiting on some as-yet-unwritten regulations to come from Congress. AI is already deeply entrenched in American industry and society; people will be at risk until basic rules ensuring safety and fairness can go into effect. Over the next decade, this novel technology will be used throughout our society, for harm and good. It will significantly alter our industries, jobs, and ways of life, and rebuild how we as a people function in profound and fundamental ways."
They continued, "That Congress is burying a provision that will strip the right of any state to regulate this technology in any way – without a thoughtful public debate – is the antithesis of what our Founders envisioned. We fully recognize that AI dominance is the next front in industrial competition between the United States and adversaries like Communist China. States have led on anti-Communist Chinese action, banning Communist Chinese-affiliated companies from owning farmland and property around critical infrastructure and military bases. But America should not sacrifice the health, safety, and prosperity of its people in this fight."
"We must curb AI's worst excesses while also encouraging its growth, which is exactly what states have done through the creation of their own regulatory frameworks. As Republican Governors, we support the One, Big, Beautiful Bill and President Trump's vision of American AI dominance, but we cannot support a provision that takes away states' powers to protect our citizens. Let states function as the laboratories of democracy they were intended to be and allow state leaders to protect our people," they said.
AI letter by Caleb Taylor on Scribd
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