House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., is pushing to give the Commerce Department an extra $500 million for artificial intelligence (AI) tech capabilities – and to block state AI regulations – through the budget reconciliation process that is kicking off in Congress this week.
Rep. Guthrie today released several committee “prints” that the full committee will consider at a budget reconciliation markup session set for May 13 at 2 p.m.
The communications-related portion of those prints proposes to give the Commerce Department $500 million beginning in fiscal year 2025 and running through FY2035 “to modernize and secure Federal information technology systems through the deployment of commercial artificial intelligence, the deployment of automation technologies, and the replacement of antiquated business systems.”
The provision would give the Commerce Secretary authorization to replace or modernize legacy systems withing the agency with “state-of-the-art commercial artificial intelligence systems and automated decision systems.”
Those AI systems, the provision says, would be geared toward improving the agency’s operational efficiency and service delivery, and improving its cybersecurity posture “through modernized architecture, automated threat detection, and integrated artificial intelligence solutions.”
State Law Clampdown
The committee’s communications print also proposes to block state AI regulations by declaring a ten-year moratorium on enforcement of any state laws “regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems.”
That provision would not apply to executing on pro-AI state laws that seek to remove impediments to the operation of AI systems, or that streamline related licensing and permitting processes.
Spectrum Auctions
The communications print also calls for the Commerce Department and the Federal Communications Commission to identify within two years not less than 600 megahertz of radiofrequency spectrum that can be reallocated and auctioned for non-Federal government use for fixed and mobile broadband services.
Notably, the proposal would exempt spectrum between 3.1 gigahertz and 3.45 gigahertz which is now controlled by the Defense Department (DoD).
Last week, Katie Arrington, the Pentagon’s action chief information officer, told members of Congress that those spectrum holdings are crucial to operating more than a thousand military platforms and weapons systems, and to DoD’s development of President Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system.