Great American AI Act — First federal framework draft released
On June 4, Representatives Obernolte (R-CA) and Trahan (D-MA) released a 269-page discussion draft for the Great American Artificial Intelligence Act (GAAIA). It targets frontier model developers (>$500M revenue, models trained on 10²⁶+ compute), establishes a Center for AI Standards and Innovation at Commerce ($100M/year), requires critical safety incident reporting, whistleblower protections, AI-related layoff disclosures (60-day WARN Act), and proposes federal pre-emption of state AI development laws for three years.
• New today: The draft is circulating for stakeholder feedback before formal introduction; timing of introduction unspecified.
• Why it matters: ⚑ This is the most serious federal AI governance attempt to date. The pre-emption clause — blocking state-level model development regulation — directly conflicts with 36 state AGs who wrote Congress opposing exactly this. Colorado’s AI Act takes effect June 30. The GAAIA, if enacted, would override it. The US regulatory map is about to be contested terrain.
• Sources: DLA Piper · FedScoop