FCC Has Scant, If Any, Ability to Preempt State AI Rules: Phoenix Center
While state efforts to regulate AI are mushrooming, the Trump administration's plans to use FCC preemption powers to stop those efforts are unlikely to succeed, Phoenix Center President Larry Spiwak said in a paper last week. The administration's AI Action…
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Plan, issued in July, directs the commission to evaluate whether state AI regulations interfere with its Communications Act obligations (see 2507230050). That presumably implies that the FCC should use its Section 253 and 332 authority to preempt those state laws, Spiwak said. But such efforts aren't likely to bear fruit, given the plain language of the Communications Act and recent case law, he argued. Instead, twisting the Communications Act for state AI law preemption "may open a Pandora’s Box of unintended consequences, perversely leading to a vast expansion of the FCC’s powers beyond its limited statutory constraints." Political efforts should focus instead on enacting federal legislation that would give that preemption authority, he added.