The U.S. Senate voted early Tuesday morning to drop from its reconciliation legislation a controversial 10-year moratorium on state regulation of artificial intelligence tech after the proposed ban met significant bipartisan pushback.
Senators voted 99-1 to remove that provision from the reconciliation legislation.
Then in a separate vote today, the Senate approved the larger reconciliation bill by a tally of 51-50 with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
That vote to get rid of the AI regulation moratorium provision followed a compromise struck by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on Sunday evening to amend the House-approved moratorium after Sen. Blackburn raised concerns that the decade-long state regulation ban would allow harmful AI systems – capable of targeting children and generating deepfake content – to run rampant.
Sen. Blackburn ultimately pulled out of the deal she had made with Sen. Cruz which would have reduced the pause on AI regulation to five years and exempted those categories of AI related to child online safety and deepfakes. The amendment agreed upon Sunday would have also incorporated a proposal from Sen. Cruz to withhold Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds to states that regulate AI.
In a statement shared with MeriTalk on Monday night, Sen. Blackburn said that while she appreciated Sen. Cruz’s “efforts to find acceptable language that allows states to protect their citizens from the abuses of AI, the current language is not acceptable to those who need these protections the most. This provision could allow Big Tech to continue to exploit kids, creators, and conservatives.”
“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,” Sen. Blackburn said.
Sen. Cruz voted alongside Sen. Blackburn to strike the moratorium on AI after championing the measure among his colleagues. Sen. Thomas Tillis, R-N.C., was the single yes vote on the AI regulation amendment.
Opponents of the moratorium cheered the Senate’s decision. Among other input, members of Congress received a letter from more than 260 state lawmakers urging Federal lawmakers to vote no on the provision.
“The Senate came together tonight to say that we can’t just run over good state consumer protection laws,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash, who co-sponsored the amendment to strike the moratorium.
“States can fight robocalls, deepfakes and provide safe autonomous vehicle laws,” she continued. “This also allows us to work together nationally to provide a new federal framework on Artificial Intelligence that accelerates U.S. leadership in AI while still protecting consumers.”
The moratorium also received pushback from top House Republicans including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who denounced the measure and explained that she did not notice the moratorium when first voting to pass the reconciliation bill out of the House. She called the ban “a pause for 10 years in federalism.”
She further threatened to vote no on the reconciliation bill when it came back to the House after Senate amendments if the state regulation pause was maintained.
The reconciliation bill is due to return to the House this week for a final vote after Senate revisions, as Republicans race to meet President Trump’s July 4 deadline to deliver the legislation to his desk.