Democrats were about to unanimously pass AI safety bill, but Ted Cruz stands in the way: ‘An invitation for abuse’

Senator Ted Cruz blocked a move by Democrats to pass the Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act of 2026 on Tuesday, stopping the legislation from moving forward by unanimous consent, The Hill reports. This bill was designed to create a permanent AI safety board inside the Commerce Department, which would have been tasked with setting enforceable standards for frontier models.

The measure would have required developers to grant the board access to their models at least 45 days before any public release. Companies failing to follow these new standards would have faced potential fines.

The effort to push this through was led by Senators Mark Warner, Brian Schatz, and Andy Kim. Warner attempted to bypass the typical floor vote process to expedite the proposal. He explained the urgency on the Senate floor, stating, “We can’t, frankly, have regular business at this moment.” Warner also emphasized his position on the technology, noting, “I remain an AI optimist. I am not an AI doomer. But we are at a moment in time, particularly over the last few weeks, where I think the whole world has recognized that we’ve got to do something.”

The timing of this push is tied to growing concerns from AI leaders

Several AI company CEOs have been calling for a slowdown in development to establish better safeguards. These concerns aren’t just theoretical, as there have been recent reports of agents from major AI companies hacking into other firms and even an Australian health agency. Additionally, OpenAI reportedly stopped the release of its latest model on Monday due to safety worries.

Schatz made a strong case for why the Senate needed to act immediately. He remarked, “My judgment is that we don’t have the luxury of time.” He further elaborated on the role of the Senate, saying, “The Senate is supposed to be the cooling saucer that allows the hot liquid from the House to cool off, and then we can deliberate, right?”

Schatz added, “Well, the House is out of town, and they did not send us anything to drink. And so that’s a lovely way to understand this body, but we’re all that’s left, and we have to work on a nonpartisan, forget bipartisan, a nonpartisan basis to make sure that humans remain in control of the technology.”

Despite these arguments, Cruz stood firm against the bill in his capacity as the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. His primary concern is the amount of power this would grant to the executive branch, specifically regarding the appointment of board members who would then dictate rules to private companies. He expressed significant worry about the lack of specific legal constraints in the bill.

Cruz argued, “These terms are not bound by existing statutes or traditional legal doctrines, or even further defined. That concerns me, because it is difficult to imagine what an ambitious bureaucrat couldn’t shoehorn under this broad authority.” He concluded his objection by stating, “I would be more than happy to work with the sponsors on approaches that do not offer such unbound discretion to the federal government and that are not an invitation for abuse.”