Trump plans executive order to block state AI regulations

Dec. 8 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Monday he plans to issue an executive order this week to curb state artificial intelligence laws in a federal deregulation move despite safety fears.

Trump posted on Truth Social: “There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI. We are beating COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS.”

He then described the consequences if he doesn’t act.

“THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week,” he wrote. “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”

The New York Times and CNN reported a draft order directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to sue states with AI laws. Also, federal regulators were told to withhold broadband grants and other funds for those with AI laws.

The order was designed to “enhance America’s global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome, uniform national policy framework for AI.”

This move likely will be challenged in court because opponents say the president doesn’t have the authority to block state legislation.

“The president cannot pre-empt state laws through an executive order, full stop,” Travis Hall, the director for state engagement at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a think tank that promotes tech policy, told The New York Times. “Pre-emption is a question for Congress, which they have considered and rejected, and should continue to reject.”

All 50 states and territories have considered a form of AI regulations, including 38 states adopting them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They deal with safety, privacy protections and deep fakes that could disrupt elections.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in post on X on Nov. 18 called deregulation “federal government overreach” and “lets technology companies run wild.”

Florida has existing AI-related regulations within its Digital Bill of Rights and specific statutes with a comprehensive “AI Bill of Rights” proposed by the governor.

“Stripping states of jurisdiction to regulate AI is a subsidy to Big Tech and will prevent states from protecting against online censorship of political speech, predatory applications that target children, violations of intellectual property rights and data center intrusions on power/water resources,” the governor said, noting “the rise of AI is the most significant economic and cultural shift occurring at the moment.”

In July, the U.S. Senate nearly unanimously voted to remove a 10-year moratorium on the enforcement of state artificial intelligence regulations from Trump’s domestic funding bill.

Hundreds of tech employee unions, labor groups, tech safety and consumer protection nonprofits and educational institutions signed letters to Congress last month opposing blocking state AI regulations.

“We’re in a fight to determine who will benefit from AI: Big Tech CEOs or the American people,” Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project, said in a statement about the draft order last month. “We cannot afford to spend the next decade with Big Tech in the driver’s seat, steering us toward massive job losses, surveillance pricing algorithms that jack up the cost of living, and data centers that are skyrocketing home energy bills.”

Trump has already issued executive orders that void ones by President Joe Biden on government safety standards and AI export restrictions.

Last month, Trump signed an executive order to harness AI, through what is being called the Genesis Mission, and merge scientific research to “improve our national, economic and health security.”

The mission, which will fuse scientific data across the United States, will give the Department of Energy the power to use AI to unite what the Trump administration calls the best minds, most powerful computers and vast scientific data into one research system.

In May, Trump signed an executive order that will enact stricter penalties for the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated deep fakes and “revenge pornography.”

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and AI companies, including OpenAI, want federal regulators and the White House to block the state laws. They said they are dealing with a myriad of state laws.

“That imbalance threatens the competitive dynamism that is so important to American innovation,” Andreessen Horowitz said.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, agrees with the companies, telling CNBC on Monday: “There are some states that want to regulate these companies within an inch of their lives, and when they make a misstep, fine the heck out of them. This executive order that he’s promised to come out is going to make it clear that there’s one set of rules for AI companies in the US.”