White House Negotiates Federal AI Preemption
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- White House is negotiating a federal preemption of certain state AI laws in exchange for Congressional support on tech policy priorities.
- Sen. Marsha Blackburn is leading the negotiations, pairing the preemption package with the Kids Online Safety Act, the NO FAKES Act, and age‑verification requirements.
- Bipartisan House bill from Reps. Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan would preempt state AI laws for three years, create a Center for AI Standards and Innovation, and require developers to address risks before releasing models.
- Trump administration signed an AI and cyber executive order last week that includes voluntary pre‑deployment testing of frontier models and is now meeting with AI companies to discuss benchmarking.
- Advocacy groups and state lawmakers previously pushed back against federal AI preemption, arguing states should retain the ability to regulate.
- White House says it continues to engage across government and industry on AI policy.
Why it matters: Tech firms gain a uniform national framework that could ease compliance, while states lose the ability to enforce their own AI rules. The package also advances child‑online safety and deepfake restrictions, reshaping the policy agenda toward those priorities and signaling a shift in regulatory power.
