The Republican led-Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee's reconciliation proposal would provide $500 million for fiscal 2025 for the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment program, which can be used for AI models, intelligence systems or automated decision systems. However, similar to its House counterpart, it largely bars states from receiving funds if they regulate AI over the next decade.
"Slipping such a consequential provision into a reconciliation budget package is really bad precedent," McClain Delaney told Law360 in an interview on Friday, calling the policy proposal "absurd."
McClain Delaney served under the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration from January 2022 to September 2023.
She now chairs the Rural Broadband Task Force for the New Democrat Coalition, which is composed of 115 center-left House Democrats. She's calling on the Senate to remove the AI measure from the budget package, which Republicans are hoping to send to the president's desk by July 4.
McClain Delaney said she believes any AI legislation should be in a standalone bill and based on the recommendations published in December by the bipartisan congressional AI task force.
"We deserve a comprehensive bipartisan AI bill that really speaks to safe and ethical use of AI and doing no harm while also promoting innovation and investment and keeping up in a global race with China and other parties," McClain Delaney said.
She also raised concerns that the Trump administration is already changing the requirements for the BEAD program, established as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to be technology neutral, which is forcing some states to rewrite their deployment plans and could result in construction delays.
In March, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced his department launched a review and revamp of the program to rid it of "woke mandates, favoritism towards certain technologies, and burdensome regulations." Then on June 6 he announced the new plan.
McClain Delaney, along with 26 other House Democrats, sent a letter to Senate leadership on June 12 railing against the "deeply dangerous provision" in the Senate bill.
"Linking critical broadband funding — intended to close the digital divide, support rural communities, and provide lifesaving services to our constituents — to the suppression of state-level AI oversight is both coercive and irresponsible," they wrote.
"We have already seen an outpouring of opposition against the House Republicans' AI moratorium provision, including bipartisan opposition from state attorneys general, state legislators, voters, and over 140 consumer advocacy, online safety, and civil rights groups," the lawmakers added.
The House reconciliation bill, which passed at the end of May, would appropriate $500 million to the U.S. Department of Commerce "to modernize and secure federal information technology systems" through the use of commercial AI and automation technologies and replacement of old systems. It would also institute a 10-year moratorium on states' ability to enforce laws or regulations pertaining to AI, with some exceptions.
Speaking to reporters on June 9, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., defended the moratorium, saying, "It would be a very dangerous thing, we feel, for all 50 states to have a patchwork of regulations on AI."
The office of Senate Minority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., did not immediately respond for comment on the House Democrats' letter.
The office of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., pointed to the senator's comments last week that "there is a great deal of discussion right now with the parliamentarian" on whether the moratorium in the House bill would pass the Byrd Rule, which limits what can be included in reconciliation in the Senate.
There will likely be protracted debate on the Senate floor, with scores of amendments filed by Democrats.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said on June 10 he would be filing one to block the AI moratorium.
--Editing by Marygrace Anderson.
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