By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-17 18:37:00 | Updated at 2026-09-17 19:20:41
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON—After some in the artificial intelligence (AI) world called to slow the technology’s development, members of the House and Senate quickly pushed for legislation to regulate it.
There’s no shortage of proposals. At least some of them, including the Great American AI Act, were already moving through the chambers when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, xAI CEO Elon Musk, Anthropic whistleblower Jacob Coxon, and other insiders forced a conversation in the weeks ahead of contested midterm elections.
Washington’s recent Pro-Human Assembly, which brought together former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and other AI skeptics from both parties, allowed lawmakers to promote some of their big ideas.
Yet, for all the talk, congressional action on frontier AI models is slower than the news cycle. Now that the House has left town, likely until after the midterms, nothing is likely to materialize on AI for weeks.
A partial exception is legislation in line with the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, an effort to blunt the impact of the AI-driven data center buildout on consumers’ electric bills. That proposal, the Ratepayer Protection Act, has landed in the Senate after its near-unanimous passage in the House on Sept. 16.
As lawmakers debate more sweeping moves, President Donald Trump has pushed back against the most extreme predictions about AI’s trajectory.
“The claim that ‘AI is going to take over the world’ is a hoax,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 14.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), now known for his clashes with Trump, also sounded skeptical of the doomsaying. He told The Epoch Times on Sept. 16 that he thinks most AI leaders who have warned that their technology will exterminate humanity do not believe their own claims.
“I think they’re worried about their own economic outcomes,” he said, suggesting those executives and engineers want to steer the creation of regulations that would favor themselves.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei during a G7 meeting in Evian-les-Bains, France, on June 17, 2026. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
On Sept. 16, as the House was about to vote, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) acknowledged that the body’s imminent departure would delay AI lawmaking until after the midterms.
The AI “issue will come up immediately” once he and his colleagues return, he predicted to The Epoch Times. He also lauded the expertise of Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) as a longstanding leader in Congress’s efforts to grapple with the technology.
Obernolte, a computer scientist with a graduate-level education in AI, told reporters on Sept. 14 that “everything is moving” on the Great American AI Act, which he cosponsored with Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.). The framework legislation’s provisions have been parceled across multiple committees.
“This is not a sudden process at all. It’s been very deliberate,” he told The Epoch Times regarding the act, noting that it took more than a year to draft.
The California Republican co-led the House Bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, which issued a report with recommendations in late 2024.
Congress’s AI Avalanche
Obernolte and Trahan’s FRONTIER Act, a proposal for regulating advanced AI models, grew out of the Great American AI Act.
“This is how we protect the public from catastrophic risks without slowing the innovation that keeps America competitive,” Trahan said of the proposal when it was released in July.
Some lawmakers are now demanding rapid action.
A joint letter from Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the latter a participant in the Pro-Human Assembly, called for floor votes in the House and Senate on their bill, the Artificial Intelligence Evaluation Act.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) at the Pro-Human Assembly on artificial intelligence in Washington on Sept. 15, 2026 (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times).
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 9, 2025. Hawley has been a vocal critic of social media companies, which he says prioritize profits over children. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times
Their legislation would launch a new program in the Department of Energy under which AI developers would have to let the program assess their models before they were released.
On Sept. 16, a new bill from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) requiring a “kill switch” in AI models was shot down after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objected to his request for unanimous consent. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) introduced an AI kill switch bill in the House in July.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who cosponsored AI legislation in 2023, are negotiating over an AI bill that could tackle the perceived threat of frontier models.
Earlier this month, Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) introduced the Stop Rogue AI Act. That proposal would require new guidance on AI agents from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
At the Pro-Human Assembly on Sept. 15, Blumenthal, Trahan, Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), and others promoted legislation bearing on AI and associated technologies.
Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) outlined a plan to pause advanced AI development and ban artificial superintelligence—a hypothetical future form of AI that could surpass the brightest humans in every area.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) speaks to reporters at Rockland Community at Rockland Community College in Suffern, N.Y., on May 22, 2026. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) addresses the Pro-Human Assembly, a conference of critics of artificial intelligence, in Washington on Sept. 15, 2026. Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times
The event also equipped participants to lobby for government intervention.
A presentation from New York State Representative Alex Bores, a computer scientist and AI safety advocate, included a slide on “power mapping”—an outline of the lawmakers, staff, and others who decide whether a bill makes it into law.
“Passing a law is all about the various choke points along the way,” he said.
Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a coauthor of the 2024 task force report, told The Epoch Times he anticipates more approaches like Anthropic’s Project Glasswing. That effort has seen Anthropic collaborate with industry partners to assess the cybersecurity implications of its frontier Claude Mythos model.
“From that will come some best practices on what are those guardrails and how should they be implemented,” he said.
