As the longest federal government shutdown in history likely nears an end, industry lawyers who depend on FCC decisions said there’s no question the companies they represent have taken a hit. Among the biggest problems, they said, are that everything the FCC has done has taken longer, while some transactions and license applications aren’t being processed with key systems offline.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said Monday the key to successful regulation of AI includes having a light touch that respects innovation, but also being mindful of protecting children.
The Senate’s AI moratorium proposal won’t impact copyright laws, such as those in Tennessee, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told us Thursday.
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., continued Thursday to criticize panel Republicans’ proposed spectrum language for the chamber’s budget reconciliation package (see 2506060029). She argued during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event that the spectrum proposal would leave DOD and aviation stakeholders more vulnerable to China and other malicious actors. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui of California and 30 other chamber Democrats also urged Senate leaders to jettison language from the reconciliation package that would require governments receiving funding from the $42.5 billion BEAD program to pause enforcing state-level AI rules.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Republican opposition to the proposed federal moratorium that would block enforcement of states' AI laws for 10 years (see 2506060019).
It’s unclear whether a proposed 10-year moratorium on AI regulation will survive parliamentary procedure in the Senate, and predictions vary based on political party and business interests.
Members of a bipartisan multistate AI policy working group are preparing an open letter opposing a U.S. House proposal that sets a 10-year moratorium on the enforcement of state AI laws (see 2505120067), Maryland Sen. Katie Fry Hester (D) told us Tuesday. Virginia Del. Michelle Lopes Maldonado (D), another working group member who has helped spearhead AI legislative efforts in her state, told us the House proposal appears to be part of a concerted industry effort to kill forward momentum on state AI bills. Meanwhile, senators we spoke to on Capitol Hill split largely on party lines about the plan Tuesday.
It would be a mistake for the Trump administration to undo President Joe Biden’s efforts at establishing a rights-based regulatory framework for AI technology, Democrats told us in interviews before the break.
Congressional GOP leaders are doubtful about lawmakers' chances of reaching a year-end deal on an additional $3.08 billion for the FCC's Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program even as some Democrats are softening their insistence that the funding move in tandem with stopgap money for the FCC's lapsed affordable connectivity program. Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, Rep. August Pfluger of Texas and nine other Republicans wrote congressional leaders Monday to press for rip-and-replace funding in a bid to highlight the issue amid the lame-duck frenzy.
The Senate Commerce Committee’s surprise adoption Wednesday of an amendment to the Proper Leadership to Align Networks for Broadband Act (S-2238) that would allocate $7 billion in stopgap funding for the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program likely imperils chamber passage of that measure, lawmakers and lobbyists told us. Debate over the pro-ACP amendment and a proposal that attached $3.08 billion to fully fund the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program also signaled continued friction among panel members over the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207).