Senate Rejects 10-Year Ban on State AI Laws in Major Blow To Tech Companies
U.S. senators voted to strike down a proposed 10-year ban that would have blocked states and local governments from creating their own AI regulations, dealing a major setback to tech companies that claimed such legislation would hinder innovation.
On Tuesday, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to strip a controversial 10-year ban on state-level AI regulation from President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
AI companies had lobbied hard to keep the rule in Trump’s spending bill that would stop states from making their own laws for the next decade. Earlier this week, it looked like they might have a policy win.
But the U.S. Senate, led by Republicans, voted 99–1 to remove that rule from the bill. The vote came after Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee introduced an amendment to take it out.
The day before the vote, Blackburn had worked with Senator Ted Cruz on a possible compromise. Their idea was to shorten the ban to five years and allow states to make some rules — for example, to protect artists or children — as long as the rules weren’t too strict on AI companies. However, Blackburn later decided not to support the compromise and went ahead with the full amendment to remove the ban entirely.
“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,” Blackburn says in a statement.
While there are no federal laws on AI, many states have enacted their own regulations. For example, California passed several laws regarding the technology last year, including legislation banning political deepfakes. But a new federal proposal could override these state laws.
The news is a huge blow to AI companies, such as Google and OpenAI, who had supported the federal ban on state laws. They argued that having different rules in each state would slow progress and hurt the U.S.’s ability to compete with China and the ban would help the country stay ahead in AI innovation.
The Trump administration supported the proposal as well. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the ban on state AI regulations was important for keeping the U.S. ahead in the AI race.
“If we’re serious about winning the AI race, we must prioritize investment and innovation,” Lutnick writes on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter).
But most Democrats, along with many Republicans, argued that blocking states from making their own rules would put consumers at risk and give large AI companies too much freedom.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
