The moratorium was worse than doing nothing at all to regulate AI, she remembers thinking. The AI moratorium passed without issue as part of the House bill, and it’s been preserved in the current Senate version with a few changes. Many Republicans and tech leaders — including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — think the moratorium will cut through patchwork state AI regulations that could hamper US companies competing against rivals like China’s DeepSeek. OpenAI lobbied publicly for a moratorium on state laws citing SB 1047, a California AI safety bill narrowly vetoed by Gov. On Thursday, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee proposed alternative language for the moratorium, moving from a blanket ban on state AI regulation to a warning that states must not regulate AI if they want to receive federal broadband funding.