Bipartisan AGs Urge Congress To Shut Down Federal AI Preemption

• A bipartisan coalition of 36 AGs sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to reject any effort to include a ban on state artificial intelligence (AI) laws in upcoming federal legislation, including reported attempts to insert such language into a military funding bill. California AG Rob Bonta submitted a separate letter opposing the reported push to use the funding bill to preempt state authority over AI regulation.
• Both the coalition's letter and AG Bonta's letter emphasize that states must retain the flexibility to address rapidly evolving AI-related risks to public safety, privacy, and consumer protection. They stress that states are already pioneering targeted laws to address the misuse of AI, including protections against the sharing of deepfake nonconsensual intimate images and safeguards against predatory or harmful interactions between AI assistants and children.
• The coalition argues that broad federal preemption of state AI laws would be especially harmful given how quickly unforeseen risks can emerge with fast-moving technologies. While acknowledging AI's substantial benefits—including in science and healthcare—the coalition's letter stresses that AI's risks require both agile state-level action and thoughtful federal regulation. AG Bonta's letter similarly warns that preemption would undermine states' ability to protect residents, observing that any federal AI law should serve as a floor, not a ceiling, to preserve state flexibility to adopt necessary guardrails.
• We have previously reported on other bipartisan AG initiatives on AI, including a prior bipartisan letter opposing a federal AI preemption and the launch of a nationwide, bipartisan AG Task Force on AI.

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