One Nation, One AI Rulebook: Why Trump Is Right to End the 50-State Patchwork
California keeps writing its own rules for the most important technology of our time. In our view, America cannot win the AI race with fifty referees. Congress should finish the job the White House started.
By Clara Hughes
Label: Altas World News Opinion Estimated read time: 7 minutes Key takeaways The White House has asked Congress to set one national AI standard and preempt state AI laws that impose "undue burdens," while protecting states' power over child safety, fraud and consumer protection [1]. A bipartisan House discussion draft, the Great American AI Act, and the FRONTIER Act bill introduced from it in July would set national rules for the most powerful AI models and limit state rules on AI development [2][3]. California added two more AI laws in September [4]. In our view, that is exactly why Congress needs to act before the patchwork hardens. The problem: fifty sets of rules Imagine building a car that had to meet a different safety code in every state it drove through. That is the situation American AI developers face today. States have been passing their own AI laws at a fast clip. Colorado, California, Texas and Utah have all enacted algorithmic accountability statutes, according to the law firm Ropes & Gray, on top of a wide range of privacy and sector-specific rules [1]. The Trump administration calls it "a patchwork of 50 different regulatory regimes" that makes compliance harder [1]. California is leading the way. On Sept. 9, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 813, which creates a framework for independent verification organizations to assess AI systems for compliance with state law, and Assembly Bill 1405, which sets up a state registry for AI auditors [4]. Those came on top of SB 53, the 2025 law that requires frontier AI developers to publicly disclose their safety frameworks and report certain critical safety incidents to the state [4]. Newsom himself said, "The federal government must step forward with robust, national regulations that match the urgency of this moment" [4]. On the need for a national answer, at least, we agree with him. What the White House has proposed President Trump has been working this problem from the start. On Dec. 11, 2025, he sig…