AI Ban in Spending Bill Would Curb States' Driverless Car Regulations

[justaprogressive]

The House spending bill’s proposal to bar states from regulating artificial-intelligence systems for a decade stands to erase the only laws in America governing the use of driverless cars—vehicles that have been responsible for thousands of crashes and multiple deaths over the last four years, federal data shows. “Autonomous vehicles,” or AVs, use artificial-intelligence technology to run; there are currently no federal regulations for their use, and traffic rules more generally are typically governed at the state level. So without state laws, AV use would be unregulated.

“If this provision moves forward, some companies may be more conscientious about safety than others, but we always have to consider the lowest denominator,” said Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety President Catherine Chase. “It’s really quite lucky that there haven’t been more fatalities and injuries considering the lack of rules and regulation.”

House lawmakers passed the provision as part of their mega-spending bill last month. It is now with the Senate, where lawmakers are expected to make substantial changes. While the bill’s marquee provisions relate to gutting Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs to fund tax cuts for the rich, it also includes multiple instances of fine-print maneuvering designed to enrich the wealthy and benefit industry, as the Prospect has chronicled.

The provision banning state AI regulation is among its many giveaways to Silicon Valley, which also include $3 billion worth of line items to integrate artificial intelligence into the military and border control. As part of a separate $500 million appropriation to the Commerce Department to use AI to modernize its information technology, the provision purports to ensure the success of that effort by forbidding “any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.” Advocates and legal experts said the provision would also repeal existing laws.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2025-06-02-ai-ban-spending-bill-states-driverless-car-regulations/

[markodochartaigh]

1. I thought that this "big, beautiful" bill

was a budget reconciliation bill. I seem to remember non-budgetary items stripped out of budget reconciliation bills by the Senate Parliamentarian. Is that just one more thing which only applies to Democratic budget reconciliation bills?