Bipartisan negotiations in the Senate over artificial intelligence (AI) safety have reached an impasse, and there will be no committee markup before the upcoming election, according to Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Cruz said that while he wants to advance the effort, “we don’t yet have bipartisan agreement on that bill, so at this point, any markup would have to be during a lame duck. I’m frustrated by that.”
Klobuchar said she is still in discussions with Republican colleagues and hopes to “pass strong safeguards” on AI by the end of the year. She blamed President Donald Trump, saying his “opposition to common-sense, bipartisan guardrails has complicated the negotiations.”
At this juncture it is unclear whether senators will be able to introduce a bipartisan bill before the election. Responding to that possibility, Cruz said, “Possibly. But that decision has not been made.”
That means committee-level work — including detailed drafting, debate, and formal amendments — is unlikely to occur before voters head to the polls, and any substantive progress could be pushed into the post-election lame-duck session.
Why it matters
Lack of bipartisan agreement complicates efforts to produce broadly supported federal AI rules. In the Senate process, committee markup is a key step to move a proposal toward full-chamber consideration; without it, a bill has a lower chance of advancing. The disagreements between lawmakers, and the political opposition cited by Klobuchar, could delay the development and adoption of federal AI safeguards.
