Top Republican and Democratic officials in Pennsylvania are decrying a provision in the tax and spending cuts bill passed in the House last week that would ban states from adopting or enforcing artificial intelligence regulations over the next decade. Republican Dave Sunday was among the 40 state attorneys general who, in a May 16 letter to congressional leaders, slammed the moratorium as “irresponsible” and warned it would “directly harm” consumers. “The impact of such a broad moratorium would be sweeping and wholly destructive of reasonable state efforts to prevent known harms associated with AI,” the attorneys general wrote.

Last week, Republican Tracy Pennycuick and Democrat Nick Miller — co-chairs of the state Senate Communications & Technology Committee — sent letters to Pennsylvania’s two U.S. senators and 17 House members arguing the ban would “impede” their work to protect consumers and infrastructure while supporting AI development. And speaking with LNP | LancasterOnline on Wednesday, House Communications & Technology Committee Chair Joe Ciresi predicted the moratorium would slow AI development. “It’s big government from people who claim they want small government,” Ciresi said, noting the bill that includes the AI ban was passed in the U.S. House with only Republican votes.

“It’s a contradiction.” More than 140 civil and consumer rights organizations also sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries earlier this month condemning the proposed ban. “You must reject this sweeping proposal,” the groups wrote. “Americans deserve both meaningful federal protections and the ability of their states to lead in advancing safety, fairness, and accountability when AI systems cause harm.” State legislators nationwide have urged Congress for years to act on the quickly evolving technology, but an increasing number of states have passed reforms in the absence of federal action.

The more than 1,000-page budget bill narrowly cleared the House earlier this month with a provision that says “no state or political subdivision may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems” for ten years. Every Republican House member from Pennsylvania, including Lancaster County Congressman Lloyd Smucker, voted in favor of the bill. Every Democrat opposed it.

Smucker’s spokesman, Eric Reath, did not respond to requests for comment. PA law at risk Senate Republicans have said they plan to change the legislation, but party leadership has not publicly taken a stance on the AI regulation ban. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, who sits on the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee, has said she would not support the moratorium.

The offices of Pennsylvania’s U.S. Sens. Dave McCormick, a Republican, and John Fetterman, a Democrat, did not respond to requests for comment. The ban received harsh pushback from Democrats when it was discussed in a U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing earlier this month.

Opponents said it would leave consumers defenseless against AI. Meanwhile, supporters said the ban would prevent states from adopting different, possibly conflicting regulations and give Congress time to adopt a sweeping federal policy on AI. Pennsylvania’s General Assembly scored its first win in regulating AI last year by passing a bill to ban AI-generated “deepfakes” and child porn — like that of the case at Lancaster Country Day School last year when two students allegedly used AI to generate nude images of underage classmates.

That law would likely be unenforceable if the budget bill is signed into law. And the more than one dozen proposals introduced in the Legislature since January would essentially be dead in the water. With a new House committee and a slate of policy hearings across the state, this year was slated to be an important year for Pennsylvania lawmakers to consider legislation regulating AI, as previously reported by LNP | LancasterOnline.

Thirty other states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, adopted AI-related resolutions or legislation last year. An AI researcher’s take Penn State Assistant Professor Mehrdad Mahdavi, who helps run the university’s Machine Learning and Optimization Lab, said in an email that lawmakers’ best approach to regulate AI would be for the federal government to set baseline protections while allowing states to pass further legislation to address local concerns. Mahdavi said banning state regulation could promote innovation because AI developers and businesses would not need to worry about “potential conflicts” from a patchwork of state laws.

But Mahdavi also said lawmakers risk creating a “decade-long regulatory void in one of the most powerful technologies of our time” by barring any state-level regulation, which could push AI into a “lawless and unaccountable zone.” Mahdavi compared the federal GOP’s push to block state-level AI regulation to a similar effort during the rise of the internet. “While the internet benefited from early regulatory freedom, some now argue that we waited too long to regulate its downsides (social media, misinformation, data harvesting),” Mahdavi said. “The fear with AI is that a decade without any state oversight, especially without strong federal protections, may lead to irreversible harm.

We should note that with AI, the stakes are even higher.”