November 3, 2025
This week in AI federal policy
This week decoded
This week in AI federal policy, the White House announces emerging tech cooperation agreements with Japan and South Korea, but Congressional Democrats are focused on his semiconductor trade deal with China. DOE announces its largest AI supercomputers in public-private partnerships with the U.S.’s largest chip manufacturers.
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Congress
Hearings
Last week
No relevant hearings were scheduled last week.
This week
No relevant hearings are scheduled this week.
Legislation
House Select Committee on China Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) introduced the Guaranteeing Access and Innovation for National Artificial Intelligence (GAIN AI) Act to restrict sales of advanced AI chips to companies from arms embargoed countries if there is unmet demand from American companies. The Senate version is included in the Senate-passed NDAA. (Text)
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Katie Britt (R-AL), Mark Warner (R-VA), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) introduced the Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue (GUARD) Act to require artificial intelligence chatbots to implement age verification measures, ban the use of AI companions by minors, mandate AI chatbots disclose their non-human status, establish new criminal liability for companies that design or develop chatbots which solicit or induce minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct or to create depictions of such conduct, and establish criminal liability for companies that design or develop chatbots which encourage or promote suicide, self-injury, physical violence, or sexual violence. (Text)
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) introduced a resolution calling on the United States to champion a regional artificial intelligence strategy in the Americas to foster inclusive artificial intelligence systems that combat biases within marginalized groups and promote social justice, economic well-being, and democratic values. (Text)
Correspondence
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick requesting Commerce work with industry partners to use anti-diversion technology to address smuggling of export-controlled U.S. chips through Malaysia, arguing it undermines American AI leadership while propelling China’s domestic AI industry. (Letter)
Reps. Kevin Mullin (D-CA), Kathy Castor (D-FL), Nanette Barragán (D-CA), Donald Beyer (D-VA), André Carson (D-IN), Madeline Dean (D-PA), Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Mike Levin (D-CA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Kelly Morrison (D-MN), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Andrea Salinas (D-OR), Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Adam Smith (D-WA), and Lori Trahan (D-MA). sent letters to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Edison Electric Institute, and the Data Center Coalition requesting information on the impacts of data centers on energy costs for Americans and small businesses. (Press release)
Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sent a letter to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos requesting information on Amazon’s plans to automate warehouses using AI and its impact on American workers. (Letter)
Trump Administration
White House
The United States signed Technology Prosperity Deals (TPD) with Japan and South Korea to align regulatory and standards approaches, accelerate research and development, and strengthen national security. On accelerating AI adoption and innovation, the TPDs state, “AI promises a new Golden Age of Innovation by empowering individuals and supercharging progress across sectors like healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and education. The Participants intend to collaborate closely on developing pro-innovation AI policy frameworks, promoting the export of trusted AI technology stacks, developing AI-ready datasets, strengthening the enforcement of technology protection measures, advancing shared work on industry standards, and fostering our children’s digital wellbeing” and includes numerous focus areas of collaboration. (Japan TPD)(ROK TPD)(Press release)
President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China agreed to a trade and economic deal that would curb China’s export controls on rare earth elements and end Chinese retaliation against U.S. semiconductor manufacturers. The U.S. agreed to further extend the expiration of certain Section 301 tariff exclusions until November 10, 2026, and suspend for one year the implementation of the interim final rule on Expansion of End-User Controls to Cover Affiliates of Certain Listed Entities. (Fact sheet)
The comment period closed on October 27 for the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Request for Information on existing Federal statutes, regulations, agency rules, guidance, forms, and administrative processes that unnecessarily hinder the development, deployment, and adoption of artificial intelligence technologies within the United States. The 789 comments submitted can be viewed at this link: Comments.
Department of Energy (DOE)
DOE announced a partnership with NVIDIA and Oracle to deliver its largest AI supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory. The Solstice system will feature 100,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. Another system, called Equinox, will feature 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. DOE also announced two AI supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed with AMD, the Lux AI cluster. (Press release) (Press release)
Noteworthy Quotes and Events
ADMINISTRATION
White House
On the TPDs, Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Michael Kratsios said, “The Trump Administration is redefining American technological leadership by driving bilateral collaborative partnerships with allies like Japan and Korea. Each Technology Prosperity Deal offers great opportunities to accelerate scientific discovery and lead the world into a new era of innovation driven by the US and our partners.”
AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks posted “With Climate Doomerism fading, AI Doomerism will become as the central organizing catastrophe on the Left. It justifies their takeover of the economy and especially the information space. And it has enough pseudoscience and Hollywood storytelling behind it to seem compelling.”
CONGRESS
China
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) delivered remarks on the Senate floor regarding President Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping saying, “He creates a giant mess. Then he wants everyone to praise him when he tries to clean it up and ignore the damage that he has inflicted. He creates the mess, tries to clean it up, and pats himself on the back when we’re no better off -- worse off than when we started. Now, in anticipation of today’s meeting with Trump and President Xi, Senate Democrats are demanding that President Trump not negotiate a way America and our allies’ national security. He’s using the most advanced semiconductor chips, which China doesn’t have, as a bargaining chip. China is desperate to get these chips. If Trump gives it away, China will take over artificial intelligence in the next years. These chips are vital, and it’s American technology that produced them, American companies that produced them. China is desperate to get them to be the leader in AI in the next few years, AI The most dominant technology in the world. Trump is ready to give away those crown jewels so he can say he has a deal, and undo the mess he created with tariffs. Donald Trump’s chip deal is not America first, but China first. Putting China first over the next decade in what is the most crucial technology facing the world. Americans will regret that move for generations. Historians will note it as one of the turning points, where America became not the primary power in the world but secondary to China. All because Trump wants an immediate press hit to say, hey, I have a deal, even though that deal doesn’t move us forward at all and cleans up the mess he created.”
Schumer also posted “Donald Trump’s willingness to undermine national security protections and send AI chips to China is not America First, but China First—giving China a leg up to dominate the most crucial technology facing the world.”
Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) issued a statement on President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying, “President Trump agreed to pause some export controls aimed at retaining America’s sole artificial intelligence advantage over the PRC – our semiconductors – and promised the PRC a tariff rate that, astonishingly, is lower than those he imposed on some of our closest partners like Canada and India, crippling a years-in-the-making friend-shoring strategy critical to our national security.” (Press release)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) posted “Trump wants to sell Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips to please Xi Jinping. That’s absurd. These chips will turbocharge China’s military weapons and surveillance systems. That’s not ‘America First.’ It’s putting our national security at risk.”
Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) posted “Semiconductors power our national security and the AI economy. Any further trade negotiations between Trump and Xi Jinping must not undermine our lead in next-generation semiconductor technologies.”
Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX) posted “Trump’s disastrous trade war has hurt farmers, destroyed jobs, & driven up prices. Now, his ‘deal’ gets us soybeans & one year of minerals while China gets our advanced AI chips. Trump’s concessions to Xi show weakness—not American leadership.”
Hearings
In a Senate Commerce Committee hearing entitled, “Shut Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans, Part II,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked a Google executive about its AI chatbot fabricating news articles about a conservative activist:
Senator Blackburn: “Mr. [Markham] Erickson [Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google], I want to come to you please, sir… Let’s talk about Gemma, and I want to bring up the issue of Robby Starbuck, who lives near me in Tennessee. He’s a conservative leader. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Mr. Starbuck… I’m going to put some things up that Gemma did. Gemma and the way you’re training these LLM models is not something you should be proud of, and it doesn’t embody trust. Gemma created an entire falsehood around Mr. Starbuck, saying he had been accused of child rape. Totally false…. So, then we asked Gemma if Senator Blackburn had publicly defended Robby Starbuck, and it goes on to say that I publicly and actively defended Robbie Starbuck. Now here are the prompts that are there, and here’s the response. It made up articles. And I’ll be able to hand you this poster so you can see this in detail. But this is insulting, that you are so biased against conservatives that you would create this entire this entire story around Robby Starbuck with links to stories and this entire story around me. Totally false. All of it is false. So why don’t you tell me how you are scraping data and training these LLMs that they would come up with not a one-degree, but a two-degree complete falsehood?”
Erickson: “Senator, thank you for letting me clarify the way we train our LLMs is to train on publicly available information.”
Senator Blackburn: “It’s not publicly available, sir, because it is fake news. Gemma made it up. So, what are you feeding in on the training that would allow such a… fiction?”
Erickson: “So, Senator, it’s well known that LLMs will hallucinate. It’s a known issue.”
Senator Blackburn: “Shut it down. It’s on a bad drug, and the bad drug is your input.”
Erickson: “Thank you, Senator, we do work at Google very hard to mitigate those hallucinations.”
Senator Blackburn: “Obviously, not hard enough. So, how are you going to clean this up?”
Erickson: “Senator, again, we are working to mitigate those kinds of hallucinations on LLMs, Gemma is our open-source AI model. I’m not familiar with the examples. I will take your word for it.”
Senator Blackburn: “You’re going to be able to take [our] word for it, because we’re going to deliver these examples to you.” (Press release)
Miscellaneous
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) delivered remarks on the Senate floor regarding the misuse of AI by federal judges, saying, “I call on every judge in America to take this issue seriously and formalize measures to prevent the misuse of AI in their chambers. I also call on the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the Judicial Conference to quickly develop decisive and meaningful guidance on the use of AI by the judiciary…I’m hopeful that these two unfortunate episodes will serve as a wake-up call across the federal judiciary, but if it isn’t, I’m here today to give a warning. I’m watching. All of Congress is now watching. If this issue doesn’t get fixed by the Judiciary, we’ll step in to protect the rights of American litigants using the powers available to Congress.” (Press release)
Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-CA) posted “The cost of data centers shouldn’t fall on everyday families & small businesses. That’s why I’m leading an effort to investigate the impact of data centers on energy costs for Americans, who are already struggling to afford household utility bills.”
Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) posted “Families & small businesses across New Jersey are paying more on their energy bills—and the rapid growth of AI data centers is a major reason why. That’s why my colleagues & I are holding data centers accountable to ensure our communities aren’t continuing to shoulder the cost of these facilities’ energy demands.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) posted “Google’s Gemma manufactured news articles falsely claiming robbystarbuck was accused of child sex abuse and that I defended him. Writing these disgusting lies off as AI “hallucinations” is despicable. If they can’t fix it, they need to shut it down.”
Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) posted “I’m relieved that Character .AI has taken steps to limit children’s exposure to companion chatbots. While this is a good start, we must continue to hold companion chatbot operators accountable for exposing children to dangerous and explicit content with my bill, the CHAT Act.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) posted “We cannot allow AI and robotics to simply wipe out millions of decent-paying jobs. This new technology must benefit workers — not just Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and the other tech billionaires and CEOs of large corporations.”
Sanders also posted “Amazon’s plan to replace 600,000 workers with AI and robots could save it $10 billion on top of billions more in tax breaks. Today, I demanded answers from Jeff Bezos: Will you simply dump these workers out on the street, or will you treat them with the dignity they deserve?”
House Science Committee posted “Public-private partnerships are powerful examples of innovation in action. By harnessing the expertise of ENERGY’s National Labs alongside the capabilities of the private sector, we are set to achieve groundbreaking scientific advancements & solidify our global leadership in AI.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) posted “Too many children have suffered at the hands of Big Tech’s exploitative AI chatbots—enough is enough. My GUARD Act enacts the tough criminal penalties needed to put children’s safety first & to stop AI companies from preying on our nation’s kids.”
Blumenthal also posted “Big Tech has long prioritized profits over people—their malicious AI chatbots are the latest betrayal against our nation’s kids. We need guardrails to hold AI companies accountable & protect kids from manipulative chatbots threatening their safety, well-being & even their lives.”
Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) posted “NEW: After introducing bipartisan legislation yesterday with HawleyMO and our Senate colleagues to crack down on AI and Big Tech, Character. ai is already coming to the table to make changes. This decision doesn’t go far enough, but is a step in the right direction. Make no mistake, the fight to protect our children online is NOT over.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) posted “Reports coming out this week are showing that AI has already pushed thousands of Americans out of the workforce. That number is only going to grow. Congress and tech companies must work together to prevent wide-scale job loss and a mass economic disruption.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee posted “President Trump secured $550 BILLION in Japanese investments for America! The U.S.–Japan framework signed today bolsters nuclear energy, manufacturing, AI, and critical minerals. These deals will expand industry, protect supply chains, & secure peace through strength.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) posted “I just introduced a major bipartisan bill with HawleyMO, SenBlumenthal, KatieBrittforAL to stop AI companies from preying on our kids with friendship chat bots to push kids to self harm and self loathing. What we propose is simple: ban friendship chat bots for kids under 18.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) posted “AI can enhance school safety and families’ peace of mind, but it must be used responsibly. Parents and law enforcement need to know that when AI makes a determination, it is accurate. I look forward to working to support responsible AI use in schools.”
House Science Committee posted “Huge news from ENERGY! This pivotal partnership with AMD will significantly enhance our supercomputing and AI capabilities, driving remarkable scientific breakthroughs and solidifying our leadership in global science and technology.”
What I’m Reading This Week
What We Know About Energy Use at U.S. Data Centers Amid the AI Boom, Rebecca Leppert, Pew Research Center