Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Senate Republicans Walking Away From Negotiations On Bipartisan AI Legislation
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the need for Congress to find a bipartisan way forward on Artificial Intelligence legislation, so the United States can remain the leading country in AI. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
For more than a year, I’ve worked relentlessly with Senators on both sides of the aisle to find a way forward on strong, bipartisan AI legislation.
I created a bipartisan working group with Senators Heinrich, Rounds, and Young. With our Committee Chairs and Ranking members, we organized never-before-seen bipartisan AI Insight Forums – many forums, nine of them – to bring together top experts from across the country.
Democrats and Republicans also worked together on writing bills. Through hard work, we came to significant compromises that would have led to meaningful legislation and kept America number one on AI, both in keeping innovation our north star but also making sure there were safeguards in place so that the worst could not happen.
In fact, Speaker Johnson and I had agreed that our committees should keep working together to figure out a way get AI legislation done before the end of this year.
We were feeling quite good about that until, unfortunately, the November elections occurred. Following those elections, Senate Republicans chose to walk away from the bipartisan negotiations, abandoning over a year of good-faith hard work. This is deeply unfortunate, because if we want America to remain the technological leader of the 21st-century, we can’t turn a blind eye to the changes AI will bring. Nor can we let AI become a partisan issue.
That is why I will never walking away from AI talks. I remain committed to working with both sides to make AI a top priority here in the Senate.
As I said, Speaker Johnson and I have had productive talks on AI for months, and I am glad to say we are still having those talks, with the hope of finding opportunities for action in the future.
It’s not going to be easy. It’s a difficult issue, but we have some opportunities to move the ball forward on AI next year. I know that many of my Republican colleagues here in this chamber are just as committed as I am to finish the job.
There are two Senators I’d like to thank in particular on the Republican side: Senators Young and Rounds, who have been excellent bipartisan partners with Senator Heinrich and myself for over a year. I thank them for their hard work. I thank their staffs for their hard work. We must keep going. We can't let a few on the Senate Republican side stop us from moving forward on AI.
Again, no matter how difficult it may be, my commitment to members in both chambers remains steadfast – I will work with anyone, regardless of party, to get meaningful, sustainable, and transformational AI done.
Transformational because of what AI could do, to cure heart disease, to educate young people around the globe, to deal with our climate crisis. And sustainable so that we have guardrails that prevent AI, if some bad force, whether it's a country or rogue group get hold of it, we prevent them from doing bad things and keep AI sustainable.
We must get both done. Our outline and our work are a good step in that direction. We must continue to move forward.
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