Comments
This is the draft executive order from President Trump on AI preemption.
The document, dated November 19, was previously reported on by The Information, Reuters, and Semafor. Transformer is publishing the full draft for the first time.
The executive order — clearly marked as a draft — would establish an “AI Litigation Task Force whose sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI Laws, including on grounds that such laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce.”
The interstate commerce provision closely resembles an idea published by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in September, which argued that the “dormant Commerce Clause sets guardrails, preventing states from imposing excessive burdens on interstate commerce.”
A White House official told The Information that “until officially announced by the White House, discussion about potential executive orders is speculation.”
It explicitly calls out state laws that “compel AI developers or deployers to disclose or report information in a manner that would violate the First Amendment or any other provision of the Constitution.”
It attempts to tie Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program (BEAD) funding to states’ AI laws, calling for the Secretary of Commerce to issue a policy notice which “must provide that States with AI laws [deemed onerous] are ineligible for non-deployment funds.”
Notably, the EO also calls for FCC chairman Brendan Carr and White House AI czar David Sacks to “initiate a proceeding to determine whether to adopt a Federal reporting and disclosure standard for AI models that preempts conflicting State laws.”
In the “purpose” section of the EO, President Trump describes California’s recently-passed SB 53 as “a complex and burdensome disclosure and reporting law premised on the purely speculative suspicion that AI might ‘pose catastrophic risk.’”
He also claims that “sophisticated proponents of a fear-based regulatory capture strategy are responsible for inciting” laws such as those in California and Colorado.
The leaked draft comes as Congressional Republicans try to get preemption through the NDAA in the coming weeks, despite significant backlash from Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Very cool scoop @Shakeel Hashim!