The federal government wants to override state AI protections. Last year, the Senate voted 99-1 against that exact idea.
The White House published a national AI policy framework urging Congress to write one set of federal rules for AI and preempt whatever states have already passed. The framework calls for regulations that are "minimally burdensome," focused on outcomes rather than specific technologies, and designed to let courts sort out questions like AI and copyright instead of regulators.
It doesn't propose actual legislation. It's a wish list. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is trying to turn it into something with teeth.
Her discussion draft, released alongside the framework, would impose a "duty of care" on AI developers, set federal standards for high-risk AI systems, and preempt certain state AI regulations, while explicitly permitting states to enact laws with greater protections. Blackburn framed it as solving the "patchwork of state laws that has hindered AI innovation."
Colorado shows what's actually at stake. The state passed one of the most detailed AI consumer protection laws in the country, covering any AI system that makes decisions about your education, employment, lending, healthcare, housing or insurance. There's no revenue threshold, but companies with fewer than 50 employees qualify for a narrow exemption if they don't train their own AI systems. If your AI touches Colorado consumers, you're in scope. The law takes effect June 30. Federal preemption would kill it.
And Colorado isn't the only one fighting back. Congress rejected preemption language twice: once in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (that 99-1 vote) and again in the defense authorization bill. 17 Republican governors publicly opposed it. More than 50 Republican state lawmakers sent a letter to the White House this month warning that preemption "strips states of their ability to protect their own citizens."
Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the Blackburn framework "suffers from trying to appeal to both the president and those concerned with AI's demonstrable harms." The ACLU's Cody Venzke called preemption "a dangerous step backward" for civil rights.
The framework does gesture at consumer protections, but critics aren't convinced. "We need to see money where their mouth is on the protections — more money for consumer protection agencies at both the federal and state levels," Ben Winters of the Consumer Federation of America said in a statement. "So far, they've done nothing but cut and hamstring them."
Preemption is the poison pill and everyone knows it. A Senate that voted 99-1 against the idea isn't reversing course because the White House published six principles. Blackburn's bill has real provisions — duty of care, high-risk standards — but none of that matters if the preemption fight buries the whole thing. The likeliest outcome isn't one clean federal rulebook. It's a drawn-out war over who writes the rules, fought state by state while Congress argues about it.
