‘Dumbfounds us all’: Congress struggles with policies rippling from AI development

With the Senate's last week before midterms underway, the only AI-related measure likely to pass is the Ratepayer Protection Act, a modest bill nudging state utility commissions to consider data centers' effect on consumer electricity costs. Meanwhile senators from Kennedy to Sanders to Hawley are floating everything from a 'kill switch' to a development pause to export controls, with none of it close to a vote.

The urgency followed warnings from former OpenAI and Anthropic researchers that companies are 'gambling with our lives,' and Anthropic's own CEO urging developers to slow down. Trump has called AI regulation a 'hoax' and says he won't 'stifle growth,' while meeting industry leaders at the White House this week.

Pew found 71% of Americans worried about AI-driven job losses, up sharply in two years, and states including Maryland and Virginia are moving on their own with task forces and data center rules. Analysts note Congress last passed major industry-shaping legislation with Dodd-Frank in 2010 and the Telecommunications Act in 1996, and see no comparable deal on the horizon now.

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