Senate scraps controversial AI moratorium in overnight voting session

The Senate voted in near-unanimous fashion overnight Tuesday to nix from President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill a ten-year moratorium on state and local artificial intelligence (AI) regulation.

Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a leading critic of Big Tech, offered a bipartisan amendment Monday evening to strike the proposed ban from the president’s sweeping tax and immigration bill, following a scrapped deal with her GOP Senate colleague, Ted Cruz of Texas, to moderate the moratorium. The amendment’s successful passage eliminated a major sticking point for some conservative Republicans who were uncomfortable voting for the president’s landmark bill with the AI provision included.

The Senate voted to kill the provision during a vote of 99 to 1 shortly after 4 a.m. Tuesday. Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was the lone lawmaker to vote in favor of keeping the ban on state and local AI regulation.

The retiring senator said Sunday that his decision not to seek reelection gave him the “pure freedom to call balls and strikes as I see fit.”

The Senate has taken at least 45 votes during an ongoing marathon voting session — the most in American history — to consider amendments to the budget package before the Senate takes a vote on final passage. Blackburn’s amendment is the only measure to pass the upper chamber thus far.

Blackburn and Cruz had previously cut a deal that would have reduced the moratorium to five years if states wished to access half a billion dollars in federal AI infrastructure funding. The compromise also included carveouts that would let states regulate child sexual abuse content, children’s online safety, and other deceptive practices.

The Tennessee Republican pulled out of the deal following an outcry from child safety advocates, a cohort of Republican governors, and many House Republicans warning that the Blackburn-Cruz compromise still jeopardized consumer protection, children’s online safety, and safeguards protecting against the unauthorized use of an individual’s identity.

“While I appreciate Chairman Cruz’s efforts to find acceptable language that allows states to protect their citizens from the abuses of AI, the current language is not acceptable to those who need these protections the most,” Blackburn said in a statement following her decision to file an amendment.

“This provision could allow Big Tech to continue to exploit kids, creators, and conservatives,” Blackburn continued. “Until Congress passes federally preemptive legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act and an online privacy framework, we can’t block states from making laws that protect their citizens.”

The push to enact a moratorium on state AI regulation divided the Republican Party and threatened to delay passage of the president’s landmark bill, which Trump is demanding be signed into law by July 4.

Cruz and voices on the Tech Right argued that the AI freeze on state and local regulation was necessary to ensure the United States remains an AI superpower over China. However, Blackburn and House Republicans, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, were concerned that the moratorium infringed upon states’ rights, would imperil efforts to protect children from online exploitation, and artists’ name and likeness rights.