If tracking AI legislation is giving you whiplash, you’re not the only one.
In February, I wrote about the 24-Hour AI News Cycle: https://www.stoelprivacyblog.com/2025/02/articles/ai/the-24-hour-ai-news-cycle-keeping-up-with-legal-and-regulatory-developments/. February is ancient history, and the AI news cycle has become even further compressed since then.
Now, at the end of June, we stand at a crossroads. H.R. 1 (“One Big Beautiful Bill Act”), passed by the House on May 22, 2025, contains a 10-year moratorium on the enforcement by a state or any of its political subdivisions of any laws “limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce.”[1] State attorney generals from both sides of the aisle have pushed back on the AI moratorium.[2] The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation reconciliation text includes in one subsection (q) the moratorium and in the immediately preceding subsection (p), a statement that none of the $500MM in BEAD (Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment) funds “to construct and deploy infrastructure for the provision of artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems” may be made available to an eligible (any) state or any political subdivision that does not comply with the moratorium.[3] Read together, this would seem to suggest that the moratorium could affect any state, and states that do not comply with the moratorium will not receive BEAD funding.
Some, including certain U.S. Chamber of Commerce members, support the moratorium, as reflected in a letter dated June 9, 2025 to Senate Majority Leader Thune and Senate Minority Leader Schumer.[4] Others, including Senators Cantwell (D-WA) and Blackburn (R-TN), and the attorney generals for their respective states, oppose it.[5] The bill would still need to be approved by the full Senate, which could remove the moratorium via amendment, and the House would have one more bite at the apple.
The tax and spending bill may be presented to President Trump as early as next week. If a bill with the moratorium is signed into law, while laws such as the Colorado AI Act[6] and others squarely focused on AI will be within scope, it is an open question as to whether general consumer protections laws and privacy laws or regulations, with a nexus to AI, will be impacted. At the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, the Attorney Generals of Oregon and California provided guidance on the application or Oregon[7] and California[8] law to AI.
Meanwhile, AI bills continue to progress through state legislatures and in some cases, such as the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (HB 149)[9], get signed.
As intimated, the situation is fluid.
I am still tracking AI bills, and there are many, including not only in California, but the moratorium cannot but enter into the analysis.
If you are apt, or trying, to take the long view, consider reading Nexus: A Brief History of Information Systems from the Stone Age to AI (Yuval Noah Harari). Harari is a trained historian, and if you have read any of his articles or books, you would not be surprised to find Nexus intellectually sprawling.
As an aside, I first ran across Harari in an article in The Atlantic, published in late 2018, while preparing to teach Technology Transactions Law to second and third year law students. The article, Why Technology Loves Tyranny, focused on the need to continuously reskill and upskill, and stressed the importance of critical thinking, in the new age of AI. This was roughly four years before the launch of ChatGPT, and likely some time before the term “cognitive offloading” entered the popular lexicon. I shared the teachings with my students, but the future predicted by Harari seemed quite distant.
Nexus tackles different issues. There, Harari writes: “My goal in this book is to provide a more accurate historical perspective on the AI revolution. This revolution is still in its infancy, and it is notoriously difficult to understand momentous developments in real time.” (398) Harari stresses the importance of self-correcting mechanisms, especially when and as the network becomes more powerful. This may be especially the case with respect to AI. More broadly, accountability is key, but it must be operationalized thoughtfully, pragmatically, and with sufficient lead time for effective enforcement, at least based on the recent (failed) attempt to amend the Colorado AI Act, which goes into effect on February 1, 2026.[10]
As some know, an article on agentic AI is still in the works. Stay tuned.
[1] https://legiscan.com/US/bill/HB1/2025
[2] https://coag.gov/press-releases/attorney-general-phil-weiser-bipartisan-ag-letter-congress-artificial-intelligence-regulations-5-16-25/
[3] https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/AD3D04CF-52B4-411F-854B-44C55ABBADDA
[4] https://www.uschamber.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/coalition-letter-to-the-senate-supporting-the-moratorium-on-ai-regulation-enforcement
[5] https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/6/state-attorneys-general-tell-congress-ai-moratorium-will-leave-consumers-citizens-vulnerable-to-ai-fraud-theft-other-harms
[6] https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2024a_205_signed.pdf
[7] https://www.doj.state.or.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AI-Guidance-12-24-24.pdf
[8] https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/Legal%20Advisory%20-%20Application%20of%20Existing%20CA%20Laws%20to%20Artificial%20Intelligence.pdf; https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/Final%20Legal%20Advisory%20-%20Application%20of%20Existing%20CA%20Laws%20to%20Artificial%20Intelligence%20in%20Healthcare.pdf
[9] https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB149/id/3249139/Texas-2025-HB149-Enrolled.html
[10] https://coag.gov/blog-post/attorney-general-phil-weiser-testimony-on-senate-bill-25-318-5-5-25/