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 [the] 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.
“I cannot imagine destroying federalism, taking away state rights to regulate or make laws on AI for 10 years,” Greene told reporters Tuesday. “Can you imagine? Ten years — we don’t even know what AI will be capable of in one year. We don’t know what AI will do in five years, let alone 10 years … but I’ve been reassured that it’s going to get taken out. But we’ll see.”
Greene characterized the AI moratorium as “irresponsible” given the rapid pace of technological innovation, arguing that preventing states from regulating AI for a full decade represents an unacceptable federal overreach.
“And I think it is the most irresponsible piece of legislation put into law that states cannot regulate or make laws about AI,” Greene said, emphasizing her concerns about the technology’s unpredictable development trajectory.
Supporters of the moratorium argue a uniform national framework will spur innovation, with backers like Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz comparing it to a 1998 measure that “prevent[ed] needless state over-regulation” during the dot-com boom.
Cruz’s office did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Adam Pack and Andi Shae Napier contributed to this report.
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