Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) released a 269-page discussion draft of the Great American AI Act on June 4, 2026, pairing a frontier-model safety regime with a three-year preemption of state laws “specifically regulating the development” of AI models. Cosponsors include Reps. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.), Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), and Scott Peters (D-Calif.).

The framework would route oversight through a Center for AI Standards and Innovation, funded at $100 million per fiscal year according to FedScoop. Developers with $500 million or more in prior-year gross revenue would publish AI safety frameworks. Critical safety incidents must reach CAISI within 15 days; imminent risks within 24 hours. Penalties run up to $1 million per day. The draft also defines “catastrophic risk” to include events causing 50 or more deaths or injuries, or $1 billion in property damage, and extends the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act through FY2035.

The politics are the story. Less than a year ago the Senate voted 99-1 to strip a 10-year state moratorium from a different vehicle. Obernolte and Trahan have come back with a narrower three-year version attached to substantive safety rules, betting the trade looks different when there’s a federal floor underneath it.

Critics aren’t buying. Brad Carson of Americans for Responsible Innovation called preemption a “generational mistake,” arguing the bill “takes the current floor on state AI legislation and turns it into a federal ceiling.” Brendan Steinhauser of the Alliance for Secure AI praised the catastrophic-risk framing but said it “does not justify preempting states’ ability to pass their own AI safeguards.” Rep. Houchin defended the move as blocking “a patchwork of fifty different state laws.”

The draft landed two days after President Trump’s June 2 executive order standing up a voluntary AI cybersecurity clearinghouse at Treasury. Congress now owns the harder half of the question: whether federal preemption that sunsets in 36 months is a compromise or a sequencing tactic.

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