US governors call on Congress for federal AI rules as the president dismisses safety warnings
Virginia's Abigail Spanberger and Massachusetts's Maura Healey say states cannot manage AI's risks alone.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger has written to congressional leaders asking for federal guardrails on artificial intelligence, citing data privacy, job displacement, cybersecurity and the energy demands of AI systems, StateScoop reported.
"The potential impacts of AI are too great to leave the regulation of this technology solely in the hands of private entities, especially when the CEOs of those same companies are also sounding the alarm on the significant risks presented by uncoordinated regulation," she wrote.
A week of warnings
A week earlier, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey called for federal oversight hours after President Donald Trump dismissed calls for regulation from AI developers, StateScoop reported. The president wrote that the industry needed only "a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT" and described safety concerns as a "hoax".
"When the people building the most powerful AI systems in the world are telling us there are serious risks, it's the latest and clearest sign yet that we need more guardrails and protections," Healey said. "Federal oversight is a key component of every major industry, and AI shouldn't be any different."
The debate was sharpened by an essay from Anthropic's chief executive, Dario Amodei, arguing for slowing frontier development and increasing oversight, which the heads of OpenAI and xAI said they supported.
A patchwork by default
Without federal law, states have been writing their own rules, from California's auditor framework to Illinois's audit mandate. Governors of both parties have reasons to prefer one national standard: companies face fewer conflicting rules, and states are spared building expertise they cannot afford. For now the patchwork is the policy, and public agencies buying AI must navigate it.
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