GUARDRAILS Act
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The GUARDRAILS Act is a United States bill introduced in the 119th Congress that would repeal Executive Order 14365, the Trump administration's December 2025 order directing the federal government to override state laws regulating artificial intelligence. The short title expands to the "Guaranteeing and Upholding Americans' Right to Decide Responsible AI Laws and Standards Act." [1][2] The House version, H.R. 8031, was introduced on March 20, 2026 by a group of Democratic representatives, and a companion bill, S. 4216, was introduced in the Senate on March 26, 2026 by Senator Brian Schatz. [1][3][4] As of June 2026 the legislation has been introduced and referred to committee; it has not been enacted. [1][3]
The bill is one of the most direct congressional responses to the administration's effort to establish a uniform national AI policy and to preempt the patchwork of state AI statutes. It is framed by its sponsors as a defense of states' authority to set their own guardrails (AI) for AI systems, and it sits at the center of a wider debate over whether AI should be governed primarily at the federal or the state level. [2][5] The measure has been introduced only by Democrats and faces long odds in a Republican-controlled Congress, but supporters present it as a marker of opposition and a vehicle for the states'-rights argument. [2][4]
The GUARDRAILS Act is a short, single-purpose repeal bill. Rather than creating a new regulatory regime, it targets a specific executive action: Executive Order 14365, titled "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence," which President Donald Trump signed on December 11, 2025. [3][6] The order directs federal agencies to challenge and discourage state AI laws the administration considers inconsistent with its policy of light-touch, uniform national rules. Critics, including the bill's sponsors, describe the order as an attempt to impose a de facto moratorium on state AI regulation without putting any federal safeguards in its place. [2][4]
The bill would do two main things. First, it would declare that the executive order has no force or effect, nullifying the directives it issued. Second, it would prohibit the use of federal funds to implement, administer, enforce, or otherwise carry out the order. [4][7] Because the order had been the administration's principal instrument for pressing AI preemption while Congress debated standalone legislation, repealing it would remove the executive branch's main lever for displacing state law. [2][5]
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Short title | GUARDRAILS Act [1][2] |
| Full title | Guaranteeing and Upholding Americans' Right to Decide Responsible AI Laws and Standards Act [1][2] |
| House bill | H.R. 8031, 119th Congress [1] |
| House introduced | March 20, 2026 [1][2] |
| House lead sponsors | Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Don Beyer (D-VA), Doris Matsui (D-CA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), April McClain Delaney (D-MD) [2][8] |
| House committees | Energy and Commerce; Judiciary [1] |
| Senate bill | S. 4216, 119th Congress [3] |
| Senate introduced | March 26, 2026 [3][9] |
| Senate sponsor | Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) [3][4] |
| Target | Executive Order 14365, "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence" (Dec. 11, 2025) [3][6] |
| Status (June 2026) | Introduced, referred to committee; not enacted [1][3] |
The bill was written in response to a campaign by the Trump administration to centralize AI policy at the federal level and limit the reach of state legislation. By late 2025, states had enacted or proposed dozens of AI-related laws covering matters such as algorithmic discrimination, deepfakes, automated decision-making, and disclosure requirements. The administration argued that this growing thicket of state rules threatened to fragment the market and slow American AI development relative to international competitors. [5][6]
On December 11, 2025, the President signed Executive Order 14365, "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence." [3][6] The order set out a policy of sustaining United States AI leadership through what it called a minimally burdensome national framework, and it identified excessive state regulation as an obstacle to that goal. Among its directives, the order instructed the Attorney General to establish an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws deemed inconsistent with federal policy, directed the Commerce Department to identify onerous state statutes, contemplated conditioning certain federal funding on states' regulatory choices, and called for drafting legislation to create a uniform federal framework that would preempt conflicting state AI laws. [6][10] The order included carve-outs for areas such as child-safety protections, AI computing and data-center infrastructure, and state governments' own procurement and use of AI. [6][10]
On March 20, 2026, the administration followed the order with a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, a set of nonbinding recommendations to Congress organized around themes including child protection, community safeguards, intellectual property, free speech, innovation, workforce development, and federal preemption of state AI laws. [10][11] The framework urged Congress to adopt a national standard and to preempt state laws that impose what it described as undue burdens, while stating that it would preserve state authority over areas such as consumer protection, land-use zoning, and public procurement. [10][11] The GUARDRAILS Act was introduced the same day the framework was released, sharpening the contest between the administration's preemption agenda and lawmakers who wanted to preserve state authority. [2][5]
The operative text of the GUARDRAILS Act is brief. Its central provision states that Executive Order 14365 shall have no force or effect, which would void the order and the directives issued under it. [4][7] A second provision bars the obligation or expenditure of federal funds to implement, administer, enforce, or otherwise carry out the order. [4][7] Taken together, these provisions are intended both to cancel the policy and to foreclose the executive branch from continuing to pursue it through agency action or spending. [4][5]
The practical effect, according to the sponsors, would be to ensure that states can continue to enact and enforce their own AI safeguards without facing federal litigation or funding pressure tied to the order. [2][4] Because the bill repeals the order rather than codifying any substitute, it would not by itself establish federal AI standards; it would instead return the policy landscape to one in which states remain free to legislate while Congress decides whether and how to act. [2][5]
The House measure, H.R. 8031, was introduced on March 20, 2026. Its lead sponsors were Representatives Sara Jacobs of California, Don Beyer of Virginia, Doris Matsui of California, Ted Lieu of California, and April McClain Delaney of Maryland. [2][8] The bill was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and to the Committee on the Judiciary, and it attracted additional Democratic cosponsors, among them Representatives James McGovern, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mike Quigley, Mark Takano, Rashida Tlaib, Paul Tonko, and Bonnie Watson Coleman. [1][12]
A Senate companion, S. 4216, was introduced on March 26, 2026 by Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who led a group of senators carrying the same short title and repeal language. [3][9] His cosponsors included Senators Chris Coons of Delaware, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, and Andy Kim of New Jersey. [4][9]
As of June 2026, both chambers' versions remain at the introduction-and-referral stage of the legislative process, and neither has advanced through committee or received a floor vote. The bills have been introduced exclusively by Democrats, and in a Republican-led Congress whose leadership has generally aligned with the administration's preemption goals, observers have characterized their near-term prospects for enactment as slim. [2][4][5]
| Version | Bill | Lead sponsor | Introduced | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| House | H.R. 8031 | Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) | March 20, 2026 | Referred to Energy and Commerce; Judiciary [1] |
| Senate | S. 4216 | Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) | March 26, 2026 | Referred to committee [3] |
The GUARDRAILS Act crystallizes a disagreement over the level of government that should set the rules for AI. The bill's supporters argue that the administration's order would strip states of the ability to protect their residents from AI-related harms while offering no federal protections in exchange. Representative Beyer said the Trump White House aimed to kill state AI laws without setting even minimally acceptable federal guardrails, leaving the public exposed to risks from unchecked AI. [2] Senator Schatz framed the issue similarly, saying that discouraging states from enacting commonsense regulation that protects people from potential AI harms is dangerous. [4][9] In this view, states have historically been laboratories for consumer-protection and technology policy, and federal preemption that is not accompanied by substantive safeguards amounts to deregulation by another name. [2][5]
Proponents of the administration's approach make the opposite case. They contend that a single national standard is necessary to avoid a fragmented and contradictory patchwork of state rules that would raise compliance costs, disadvantage smaller developers, and slow the pace of American AI innovation relative to competitors abroad. [5][11] On this account, AI is an inherently interstate technology that warrants uniform federal treatment, and conflicting state mandates can frustrate the development and deployment of systems that operate across state lines. [10][11] The administration's framework presents preemption of unduly burdensome state laws as compatible with preserving state authority over discrete areas such as consumer protection and zoning. [10][11]
The dispute is not strictly partisan in every respect. Earlier in the 119th Congress, an attempt to attach a multi-year moratorium on state AI laws to a broad budget package was stripped out after bipartisan opposition, including from some Republicans wary of overriding their own states' laws. [5] That history is frequently cited by opponents of preemption as evidence that there is cross-party skepticism of a sweeping federal override, even as the executive branch has continued to pursue the policy through Executive Order 14365 and related actions. [5][6]
The GUARDRAILS Act is significant less for its near-term legislative prospects than for what it represents in the broader fight over AI regulation in the United States. It is among the clearest statements of the anti-preemption position in bill form, pairing a concrete repeal of the executive order with a funding prohibition that would block its continued implementation. [4][7] By targeting the order directly, the legislation reframes a contest that had largely played out through executive action and litigation as a question for Congress to resolve. [2][5]
The bill also illustrates how AI governance has become entangled with longstanding debates about federalism. The same arguments that have animated disputes over privacy, environmental, and consumer-protection law, namely whether national uniformity or state experimentation better serves the public, now extend to AI. [5][11] Because the measure deliberately avoids prescribing federal standards, it leaves open the harder question of what national AI policy should contain, focusing instead on who gets to decide in the interim. [2][5]
In the short term, the GUARDRAILS Act is unlikely to be enacted. With Republicans controlling Congress and the White House committed to its preemption agenda, the repeal bills are expected to remain in committee without advancing. [2][4][5] The more consequential developments are likely to come from the executive branch's implementation of Executive Order 14365, including the work of the AI Litigation Task Force and any lawsuits brought against specific state statutes, and from the administration's push for Congress to pass an affirmative national framework. [6][10] The outcome of those efforts, together with any court rulings on the order's legality and the scope of federal preemption, will shape whether legislation like the GUARDRAILS Act gains traction. [5][6]
Longer term, the bill's fate is tied to the balance of power in Washington and to public reaction to high-profile AI harms. Should opposition to a sweeping federal override broaden, as it did when an earlier moratorium proposal was removed from a budget package, the states'-rights position embodied in the GUARDRAILS Act could gain additional support. [5] For now, the legislation stands as a formal expression of that position and a focal point in the contest between federal uniformity and state autonomy in AI policy. [2][5]