A proposed AI moratorium inside President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has become one of the measure’s most contested technology provisions. What began as a 10-year pause on state AI regulations was shortened to five years, then met with another wave of opposition from lawmakers, advocates, unions, and public interest groups.
The most striking turn came from Senator Marsha Blackburn. After working with Senator Ted Cruz on a revised version, Blackburn withdrew support and moved toward stripping the AI moratorium from the bill altogether.
What The AI Moratorium Would Do
The original provision would have required a 10-year pause on state AI regulations. It was championed by White House AI czar and venture capitalist David Sacks, but it quickly drew criticism from a broad set of officials and organizations.
Opposition came from 40 state attorneys general and representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, among others. The concern was straightforward: if states were blocked from acting, rules aimed at AI harms could be delayed even as the technology spreads through consumer platforms, creative industries, and automated systems.
On Sunday night, Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator Ted Cruz announced a modified version. The revised language reduced the pause from a full decade to five years and included carve-outs for certain state laws.
Those carve-outs covered areas including “unfair or deceptive acts or practices, child online safety, child sexual abuse material, rights of publicity, protection of a person’s name, image, voice, or likeness.” For Blackburn, those categories mattered because she has historically supported protections for the music industry, a major economic player in Tennessee. Last year, Tennessee passed a law to stop AI deepfakes of music artists.
Why Blackburn Changed Position
Blackburn had initially opposed the moratorium. She then worked with Cruz on the five-year compromise. By Monday evening, she had rejected that version too.
In a statement to WIRED, Blackburn said: “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.”
She added: “This provision could allow Big Tech to continue to exploit kids, creators, and conservatives. 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.”
That statement explains the central political problem for the compromise. Even with carve-outs, Blackburn argued that Congress should not prevent states from acting before federal legislation is in place. Her focus remained on kids, creators, conservatives, and the ability of states to respond to AI-related abuses.
The Carve-Outs Did Not Calm Critics
The revised moratorium was designed to preserve some state authority, but critics said the language still gave too much protection to AI companies and technology platforms. Some called the compromise a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for Big Tech.
One issue was the condition attached to the carve-outs. The exempted state laws could not place “undue or disproportionate burden” on AI systems or “automated decision systems.” Critics argued that this caveat could swallow the protections it appeared to preserve.
Senator Maria Cantwell said the language could create “a brand-new shield against litigation and state regulation.” The concern was especially sharp because AI and algorithmic feeds are embedded in social platforms, making it difficult to separate AI regulation from broader technology rules.
Advocacy groups and legal experts focused on kid safety rules also warned that the compromise remained too broad. Danny Weiss, the chief advocacy officer at Common Sense Media, called the version “extremely sweeping” and said it “could affect almost every effort to regulate tech with regards to safety” because of the undue burden shield.
J.B. Branch, an advocate for consumer rights nonprofit Public Citizen, described the updated moratorium as “a clever Trojan horse designed to wipe out state protections while pretending to preserve them” and argued that the undue burden language made the carve-outs “meaningless.”
The criticism was not limited to digital rights groups. The International Longshore & Warehouse Union called the proposal “dangerous federal overreach.” Steve Bannon warned that “they’ll get all their dirty work done in the first five years.”
The Amendment Fight
On Monday, Cantwell and Senator Ed Markey introduced an amendment to remove the AI moratorium from the bill altogether. Markey described the Sunday version as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Markey also said: “The language still allows the Trump administration to use federal broadband funding as a weapon against the states and still prevents states from protecting children online from Big Tech's predatory behavior.”
The funding issue matters because the moratorium ties access to funding from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program to compliance with the five-year pause. In practice, critics saw that link as a way to pressure states into accepting the moratorium.
By Monday night, Cantwell and Blackburn had introduced their own amendment to strip the AI moratorium from the bill. Tricia Enright, communications director for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, told WIRED by email: “Blackburn is now co-sponsoring Senator Cantwell’s amendment, and Cantwell agreed to cosponsor Blackburn’s new amendment.”
What Comes Next
The Trump Administration has urged Congress to vote on the Big Beautiful Bill before the break for the Fourth of July holiday. That timeline keeps pressure on lawmakers to resolve the AI moratorium fight quickly.
The dispute is not only about the length of the pause. It is about whether federal policy should limit state action before Congress has passed broader technology rules, including the Kids Online Safety Act and an online privacy framework.
For supporters of state authority, the risk is that a federal moratorium could slow responses to AI harms involving children, creators, likeness rights, and automated decision systems. For the bill’s defenders, the revised language tried to narrow the pause while preserving some room for state protections.
Blackburn’s reversal shows how unstable that compromise became. The provision’s future now depends on whether Congress keeps the moratorium, rewrites it again, or removes it from the Big Beautiful Bill altogether.