Transformer News reports the bill relies on voluntary self-certification and includes broad state law preemption with no federal equivalent
ConcludedRan 2 days4 sourcesupdated 11 Sep 2026
Senate Bipartisan AI Safety Bill Faces Dispute Over Testing Requirements
The gist
The bill is described by people familiar with it as the only viable legislative option before 2027, making its final shape consequential for whether the federal government sets binding AI safety standards or preempts stronger state laws without replacing them.
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The full picture
A bipartisan AI safety bill from Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Thune, and Ted Cruz is advancing in the Senate, with possible introduction as early as the week of September 14, 2026, and hopes of passing before January 2027. Klobuchar describes the bill as requiring AI developers to work with government experts to verify and test models, and said dangerous models including those that evade developer control should not be released. However, one account of the bill's contents says it contains no mandatory safety requirements, relying instead on voluntary self-certification and broadly preempting state AI laws without a federal equivalent. Ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell is pushing back over disputes about the safety testing framework. Senators Thune and Cruz did not respond to requests for comment. The bill draws from a 2023 Klobuchar-Thune collaboration that never passed; a Democratic committee aide described the new bill as 'a fundamentally different bill.'
How it developed
Semafor reports the bipartisan Klobuchar-Thune-Cruz bill is gaining momentum and may be introduced as early as the following week
Sources
- The Great American AI Act discussion draft
- Massachusetts Senate AI lab audit bill
- Anthropic's leaked draft AI bill
- California's SB 813 voluntary AI safety framework
BackgroundWhen AI doesn't do what we meant
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