Overview
- House negotiators are weighing AI preemption language for the must-pass NDAA, with talks reportedly exploring a narrower approach that could preserve areas like child safety and transparency.
- A leaked draft White House order would create a DOJ “AI Litigation Task Force” to challenge state AI laws and steer federal agencies toward national standards, but the proposal remains on hold and unsigned.
- The spending fight is escalating as industry-backed Leading the Future locks in more than $100 million and launches a $10 million push for a single federal framework, while Public First plans at least $50 million to defend state authority.
- Opposition to broad preemption spans parties and states, with more than 200 lawmakers and nearly 40 state attorneys general resisting NDAA riders and figures such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticizing the tactic.
- States continue setting their own rules, including Texas’s TRAIGA and California’s SB‑53, reinforcing the patchwork that industry groups decry and state leaders call necessary absent a federal standard.