Over 2,000 AI Bills Proposed, Yet No Long-Term Regulatory Framework Exists

The Scale of AI Regulation Proposals

The United States faces over 2,000 AI regulation proposals across federal and state governments, yet none establish a comprehensive long-term regulatory framework1

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. States have over 1,500 bills under consideration, Congress has hundreds, and the executive branch has dozens of executive actions1

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. While many of these proposed policy changes are thoughtful and needed, they focus on pieces of today's problem rather than establishing a durable, future-focused regulatory framework1

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The Case for a National Regulatory Body

Bob Greifeld, former Nasdaq CEO and managing director at Cornerstone Financial Technology, argues that the AI revolution requires a proactive national regulatory body rather than waiting for a crisis1

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. National regulatory bodies have traditionally been established after crises—the SEC was established after the crash of 1929, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was established after the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island1

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. Greifeld suggests the SEC's operating model as a partial way forward, where major changes require submission for public comment and review, a process that helped make U.S. capital markets the best in the world1

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Trump Administration's Inconsistent Approach

The Trump administration has been on both sides of the AI regulation debate, creating uncertainty around oversight for AI development2

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. Last summer, it advocated for accelerating innovation and minimizing "onerous" AI regulation2

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. This summer, a June executive order argued that national security concerns justify early government access to new models, asserting the prerogative to pressure companies to take models offline and restrict access to vetted users2

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. This informal approach makes federal oversight almost impossible and risks cronyism, as AI vendors could be pressured to alter models to advance a president's ideological or political goals2

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Legislative Efforts Gaining Traction

Members of Congress are introducing bipartisan proposals to establish oversight for frontier AI systems3

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The FRONTIER Act from Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) and Lori Trahan (D-MA) would establish a comprehensive federal AI governance framework, including model development transparency, oversight, and incident reporting3

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. In the Senate, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the AI Risk Evaluation Act last fall, which would require AI developers to submit their most advanced AI models for testing and risk assessment before deployment3

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. Last week, Representatives Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran introduced bipartisan legislation requiring AI companies to maintain the ability to shut down technology that could cause "catastrophic harm," partly responding to news that some of OpenAI's most advanced models had broken out of internal systems and hacked into another tech firm's databases2

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The Federal Preemption Debate

A looming risk is that lawmakers will allow federal preemption of state AI laws to derail needed legislation3

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. Supporters of preemption argue that a federal regulatory ceiling is necessary to avoid a patchwork of state AI laws, but states that have taken action are functioning as de-facto national standard-setters3

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. California's SB 53 established transparency requirements, safety disclosures, incident reporting obligations, and whistleblower protections for frontier AI developers3

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. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a landmark AI accountability bill into law that built on efforts in California and New York, explicitly seeking to advance a state-driven national standard in the absence of federal action3

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. More than 250 state lawmakers recently opposed federal efforts to override state AI laws3

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The Threat to Independent Oversight Bodies

On June 29, in Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the president can fire the heads of independent agencies at will, ending almost a century of protection from political interference4

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. This ruling, combined with the Office of Personnel Management's Schedule Policy/Career that lets the administration reclassify 50,000 career civil servants to strip their protections from firing, threatens the creation of credible regulation4

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. When Elon Musk ran DOGE, he gutted federal agencies, drove out experienced people, and left the rest demoralized, with Gallup finding a sharp drop in job satisfaction and a rise in burnout4

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. The government's AI Safety Institute has been renamed the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, with the word safety dropped, its focus shifted to voluntary testing, and much of its technical staff gone4

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The Need for Public Trust and Consumer Protection

Johns Hopkins University researchers found this spring that even Americans who use AI daily and like it want it regulated, and the Pew Research Center found that about 67% of Americans have little or no confidence in the government to regulate AI effectively4

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. The AI industry requires public trust, and well-crafted regulations that both earn public trust and help the industry flourish are far more likely to be produced by an apolitical expert agency4

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. Dean W. Ball, recently appointed head of strategic futures at OpenAI, explained the dangers of executive power over AI restrictions: "You should not expect the most powerful people in the world using the most powerful technology ever conceived in a way that is inscrutable to the public to turn out well, and you should see that dynamic as fundamentally inconsistent with a democratic republic"2

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Alternative Approaches and Innovation Balance

Ball has proposed "a private body" not tied to the government's "changing political valence and foreign policies" that would "audit the frontier labs at least to test their adherence to their own safety plans"2

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. Demis Hassabis, a Google DeepMind co-founder and Nobel laureate, recently proposed similar multinational standards for AI risk and safety, an idea for which several tech titans expressed public support2

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The Trump administration is set to host a September summit on global AI risk and safety with Chinese President Xi Jinping3

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. The AI revolution is a global race and the balance of innovation-led market with proper regulation is a Herculean task that must be mastered1

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. Any regulatory effort will likely hinder progress in the short term, but in the long term, the proper rules of the road will create conditions for the greater good1

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