A bipartisan coalition of over 270 state lawmakers, including five from South Carolina, urged Congress not to insert a moratorium on AI regulation in the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual spending bill. State Rep. Brandon Guffey, R-York, and state Sen. Liz Larson, a Democratic lawmaker in South Dakota, led the letter, published Monday by Americans for Responsible Innovation.
“I will continue to be vocal, because I believe this could be one of the most detrimental things of my entire generation if we were to pass it,” Guffey said. “So I will continue to be adamantly against an AI moratorium.”
A moratorium on state regulation of AI would curtail states’ efforts to put guardrails on the technology. While the ban on state regulation was initially shutdown 99-1 by U.S. Senators while debating the budget reconciliation bill over the summer, lawmakers may include a similar provision in the National Defense Authorization Act. President Donald Trump is also reportedly considering a similar executive order, which could ban states from passing or enforcing AI legislation.
Proponents of the moratorium argue 50 different regulatory environments may hamper artificial intelligence innovation in the U.S. But Guffey, and the roughly 270 other lawmakers on the letter, argue state legislatures should be able to protect people with regulation.
“As state lawmakers and policymakers, we hear regularly from constituents about rising online harm and the growing influence of AI on their lives,” the letter states.
South Carolina has not regulated AI to the same extent as other states. Colorado, for example, targeted many “high risk” uses of the technology, and Tennessee barred AI users from creating a deepfake of a person’s voice without their permission for commercial use. Guffey said he does not want to overregulate the industry, but he believes there needs to be protections in place for children interacting with chatbots, personal data and election materials.
“I’m a firm believer in states’ rights,” Guffey said.
Earlier this year, South Carolina passed laws banning AI-generated “revenge porn” and child sexual abuse material. It is unclear whether that legislation would be swept up in the moratorium. Other proposed bills from last session include placing additional protections on children’s data, mandating supervision of AI when it is used to make health care decisions and giving individuals property rights over their voice and likeness.
Apart from Guffey, South Carolina state Reps. Jay Kilmartin, R-Lexington, David Martin, R-York, Melissa Oremus, R-Aiken and James Teeple, R-Charleston, signed onto the letter. Guffey said he also spoke with U.S. lawmakers in Washington, D.C. last week about the ban.
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