America
Big Tech lobbies for a 10-year ban on state-level AI regulations

In a controversial move that has divided the artificial intelligence industry and Donald Trump’s Republican party, major technology companies are backing a lobbying campaign to prohibit US states from regulating AI models for a decade.
According to sources familiar with the matter, lobbyists acting on behalf of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta are asking the Senate to suspend states from introducing their own legislative initiatives related to artificial intelligence for 10 years.
This provision was passed last month as part of the US House of Representatives’ approval of President Donald Trump’s “big and beautiful” budget bill. The Senate hopes to release its own version this week, aiming to pass the legislation by July 4.
Chip Pickering, a former congressman and the CEO of INCOMPAS, is advocating for this proposal on behalf of the technology trade association’s members, which include leading companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google, as well as smaller data, energy, and infrastructure firms and law firms.
“This is the right policy at the right time for American leadership,” Pickering told the Financial Times (FT). “But it is equally important in terms of competition with China.”
The trade group INCOMPAS established the AI Competition Center (AICC) in 2024 to lobby legislators and regulators. Earlier this year, Amazon’s cloud division and Meta joined the AICC subgroup as debates over AI rules intensified and the EU took a series of measures to control the sector.
Critics argue that the stance of big tech companies is about securing their dominance in the race to develop artificial general intelligence, which is understood as models that surpass human capabilities in most areas.
“Responsible innovation should not fear laws that prohibit irresponsible practices,” said Asad Ramzanali, director of AI and technology policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator at Vanderbilt University.
Max Tegmark, an MIT professor and president of the Future of Life Institute, a non-profit organization campaigning for AI regulation, stated, “This is a power grab by tech oligarchs trying to consolidate more wealth and power.”
The proposed moratorium has also divided the technology sector and Republican politicians who have expressed concerns about prohibiting states from overseeing powerful technologies that have the potential to cause social and economic disruption.
Supporters argue that the provision is necessary to prevent a patchwork of inconsistent regional rules that could stifle innovation and cause the US to fall behind China.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said during a Senate hearing last month that it would be “catastrophic” for the US to require tech companies to meet certain criteria, such as transparency and safety, before releasing their products. This could soon become the case under the new AI Act in the EU.
AI safety advocates, such as Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei, have warned that relying on self-regulation could have disastrous societal consequences as Silicon Valley competes to release increasingly powerful models.
Republicans pushing for the proposal’s inclusion are investigating whether it complies with the Senate’s complex rules, which require that any provision included in a “budget reconciliation” bill must have a budgetary impact. The party is using this tactic to pass the bill without Democratic votes.
Ted Cruz, the top Republican on the Senate commerce committee, has proposed a solution: states that do not comply with the provision will be ineligible for billions of dollars in federal funds intended to expand broadband networks in underserved rural areas.
However, there is still little political consensus on how to oversee this rapidly evolving field, and no meaningful federal regulation on testing or data protection has been passed so far.
“You don’t want the number one country in the world for innovation to fall behind on artificial intelligence,” Republican senator Thom Tillis said in an interview. “If you suddenly have 50 different regulatory or legal frameworks, who in their right mind wouldn’t see that as an obstacle?”
Republican senator Steve Daines remarked, “I don’t like doing anything that starts to restrict the abilities of states. But there may be some wisdom in this, considering that the alternative could lead to a patchwork of AI regulations that could hinder and slow down the US.”
Other Republican senators, such as Josh Hawley, author of the book The Tyranny of Big Tech, and Marsha Blackburn, who supported a Tennessee law protecting the music industry from unauthorized AI use, oppose the moratorium.
“We don’t know what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years, and tying the hands of states by giving it free rein is potentially dangerous,” Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X. “This should be removed in the Senate.”