Major tech firms are supporting a lobbying effort to ban US states from regulating AI models for ten years, a contentious move that has split the AI community and Donald Trump’s Republican party. The Senate is being asked by lobbyists representing Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta to prevent states from passing their own artificial intelligence-related legislation for ten years, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Last month, the US House of Representatives approved President Donald Trump’s “big and beautiful” budget package, which included this clause. In order to approve the law before July 4, the Senate plans to unveil its own version this week.
On behalf of the members of the technological trade group, which include major corporations like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google as well as smaller data, energy, and infrastructure enterprises and legal firms, Chip Pickering, a former congressman and the CEO of INCOMPAS, is promoting this plan.
“For American leadership, this is the right policy at the right time,”
Pickering told the Financial Times (FT).
“However, in terms of competition with China, it is equally important.”
The AI Competition Center (AICC) was founded in 2024 by the industrial association INCOMPAS to influence lawmakers and authorities. As discussions over AI regulations heated up and the EU implemented a number of steps to regulate the industry, Amazon’s cloud business and Meta joined the AICC subgroup earlier this year.
What are critics saying about Big Tech lobbying?
Big tech corporations’ position, according to critics, is aimed at maintaining their lead in the competition to create artificial general intelligence, which is defined as models that are generally more intelligent than humans.
Republican legislators and the technology industry are also divided over the planned ban, with some voicing worries about preventing states from monitoring strong technologies that may damage the economy and society.
Proponents contend that the clause is required to avoid a patchwork of uneven regional regulations that may hinder innovation and push the US farther behind China.
During a Senate hearing last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that it would be “catastrophic” for the US to mandate that tech firms achieve specific standards, such safety and transparency, before launching their products. With the EU’s new AI Act, this could soon be the case.
As Silicon Valley vies to produce ever-more-powerful models, proponents of AI safety, including Dario Amodei, co-founder of Anthropic, have cautioned that depending only on self-regulation may have catastrophic societal repercussions.
Republicans who are advocating for the proposal’s inclusion are looking into whether it conforms with the Senate’s intricate regulations, which stipulate that each clause in a “budget reconciliation” package must have an effect on the budget. This strategy is being used by the party to pass the law without the support of Democrats.
