5 key players in Congress on AI policy

Fears over artificial intelligence’s rapid development sent Congress into a tailspin this week, as dozens of lawmakers joined the debate on how to regulate the technology.

The frenzy in Washington has included policymakers who have long engaged on the subject, but also those seizing on the mounting concerns for the first time.

In the wake of dire warnings from AI researchers, lawmakers floated around a range of ideas, from new caucuses and bills to classified briefings, while several older proposals got thrown back on the table.

While the prospect of passing AI safety legislation this year is low in Congress, a handful of lawmakers are expected to remain major voices on the issue on Capitol Hill.

Here are five key players to watch on AI policy:

Sanders is one of Congress’s biggest proponents of AI safety in Washington. He was one of the first policymakers to take up the cause of AI skeptics who believe the technology has existential risks to humanity, a concern that’s broken through the typical tech policy circles this month.

Over the past eight months, the Vermont progressive repeatedly called out AI’s risks to the workforce and its impact on consumer utility prices, along with the billionaire executives at the helm of these companies. He proposed some of the most drastic regulations on the technology, including a ban on the development of superintelligence or a moratorium on the data centers that power AI training and maintenance.

Most Democrats shied away from fully endorsing Sanders’s approach earlier this year as the party struggled to land on a consensus around the level of regulation for the technology. As Democrats tried to find their footing, Sanders became one of the loudest voices in Washington on the issue.

Sanders on Tuesday said Congress under both Democratic and Republican control “has been asleep at the wheel” on the issue while the decisions about AI development get made by “a handful of the richest people in the world.”

While most have not gone as far as Sanders on a solution, the panic following a warning from a former Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, gave the lawmaker new momentum behind his safety approach.

Obernolte is one of the few lawmakers with a background in technology, holding both a bachelor’s degree in engineering and applied science and a master’s degree in AI.

His background, coupled with his willingness to work with the other side of the aisle and industry, made him a go-to voice on AI in Washington. When Congress was trying to understand the technology, Obernolte was tapped to chair the House Task Force on AI in 2024.

Since releasing a 275-page report on the task force’s research alongside Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) in 2024, Obernolte introduced several bills this Congress to address concerns around safety, American competitiveness and preemption.

This includes the bipartisan Frontier Risk Oversight, National Transparency, Independent Evaluation and Reporting ( FRONTIER ) Act, which would establish requirements for AI firms like risk-management frameworks, independent audits and incident reporting. The bill, introduced with Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), would tier requirements based on the size of a firm.

As AI grows more politically divisive, the respect Obernolte has on the issue from his colleagues and industry and his work with Democrats put him on the map as someone who could bridge the gap in Congress.

Obernolte on Thursday told CNBC the FRONTIER Act “meets the moment and addresses safety concerns by balancing some light-touch regulation along with an environment we think will allow the beneficial uses of AI to flourish.”

“There’s nothing, frankly, about AI regulation that should be a partisan issue,” Obernolte said.

Like Obernolte, Trahan has made AI legislation a priority of her platform and is open to negotiations with Republicans.

The lawmakers’ FRONTIER Act was developed as part of their broader AI framework draft, the Great American AI Act, which put the Massachusetts Democrat in the spotlight on AI policy.

The nearly 300-page framework would preempt a limited set of state AI laws, aim to minimize AI risks and expand research on the technology. The discussion draft, which has not been formally introduced in the House, followed months of negotiations between the two parties and was described by industry observers as one of the most comprehensive bipartisan frameworks on AI.

Still, Trahan faced pushback from her own party over the draft at a time where Democrats were still figuring out their messaging on the issue.

Shortly after releasing the framework last June, the House Democratic Commission on AI and Innovation Economy said they could not support the discussion draft in its original form because it “does not meet the enormity of the moment.”

And the nonprofit AI safety group Americans for Responsible Innovation separately attacked Trahan in an ad stating, “AI oligarchs want to roll back civil rights and Rep. Lori Trahan is taking their side.”

Trahan suggested in an interview with WBUR this week that her colleagues are starting to catch on to the concerns she has had for months.

“I think my colleagues are scared,” she said, “They’re hearing from their constituents who want us to act. And this has been building since I started working on this issue this spring. This week has just hit a tipping point.”

Cruz will be crucial in steering which legislation moves through the Senate given his leadership of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The Texas Republican does not fall into one camp on the issue, making him a potential wild card on AI regulations.

Following Coxon’s viral social media thread, Cruz said the researcher’s warnings were “scary as hell” and said “we need substantially more regulation when it comes to AI.”

But in the same interview with Politico, Cruz argued slowing down is an “impossible endeavor” because China will not “pause” on its own AI development, echoing rhetoric from other Republicans like President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

“They are not going to stop,” Cruz said, adding, “This is somewhat tongue in cheek but it’s not entirely. If they’re going to be killer robots, I’d rather they be American killer robots and not Chinese killer robots.”

“The Chinese are putting no guardrails, they’re going full speed ahead,” he said.

Cruz is one of Congress’s most vocal critics of Big Tech, especially on kids’ online safety and antitrust. Earlier this week, he balked at Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei’s call for the government to provide a waiver to create an industry standard for safety with other companies.

Amodei, and other tech leaders like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have suggested an industry standard in the wake of Congress’s inaction.

Unlike some on this list, Whitesides is a newer voice on the AI issue in the wake of Coxon’s warning, but he is standing out for his proposals .

In an interview with NewsNation’s Blake Burman on “The Hill” on Monday, the California Democrat said the U.S. needs a “safety stand-down” on AI for at least a month for all the companies.

Asked by Burman about what he meant by a “safety stand-down,” Whitesides replied that consumers’ everyday AI usage would continue but the “research on the frontier models, pushing forward that frontier, which is what people are scared about, would pause for a month while we do one thing.”

“We get the companies in the room, and we get experts, independent experts in the government, to talk about what are the red lines, what are the lines in the sand that we will not go past,” he continued. “We do not have that today. We need to have a common vision. And then Congress needs to work with those companies to put those red lines and lines in the sand into law.”

Whitesides, previously NASA’s chief of staff and the former CEO of Virgin Galactic, compared the “stand-down” approach to how the aerospace industry would temporarily stop launches after a serious flight accident to determine what went wrong.

He currently serves on the House Science, Space, and Technology and Armed Services committees.