Johnson Says Hotly Contested Provision Will Stay Tucked Away In Big, Beautiful Bill

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday he will not remove a provision from President Donald Trump’s one big, beautiful bill that blocks states from regulating artificial intelligence (AI) for a decade — despite fierce opposition from Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Johnson argued that “national security implications” override state-level AI concerns, teeing up a potential showdown between Greene and the moratorium’s backers.

“I’ve been talking to Marjorie about that … we have to be careful not to have 50 different states hyper-regulating AI because it has national security implications,” Johnson told reporters. “If some of the deep blue states smother it with regulation, as they’re prone to do, then it might hamper our development and it could put us in a compromised position against our enemies: China and others. I think there’s a federal response that’s appropriate here.”

“I like it in its current form,” he added, responding to a question about whether he’d revise the provision in light of Greene’s complaints.

The offending section — tucked away on pages 278-279 of the house-passed bill, according to Greene — would preempt all state statutes governing AI development, deployment or liability until at least 2036. The congresswoman discovered the provision Tuesday after she “saw people sharing it on X,” she told reporters, prompting her to look up the specific pages in the legislation.

“I actually saw people sharing it on X and I said, ‘Wait a minute. I was never told about this. I didn’t read this part in bill,’” the congresswoman said.

Greene blasted the language in a Tuesday post on X, saying she “would have voted NO” had she known it was in the massive legislative package. In a follow-up interview, the congresswoman told reporters she was “reassured” the Senate will remove the provision, which she branded as a direct assault on federalism.