Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) released a 269-page bipartisan discussion draft of the Great American Artificial Intelligence Act on June 4, 2026, the most ambitious federal AI legislative effort to clear a bipartisan threshold so far. Co-sponsors include Reps. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.), Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), and Scott Peters (D-Calif.).
The bill is organized into four titles: Frontier AI Governance, Workforce, Cybersecurity, and Research, Development, and International Cooperation. It defines “large frontier developers” as companies with more than $500 million in annual revenue that have trained a frontier model. Per the Future of Privacy Forum, frontier provisions cover transparency requirements, critical safety incident reporting, and whistleblower protections for AI lab employees, alongside an AI testbed program and voluntary foundation model testing. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 would be extended through fiscal 2035.
The draft landed two days after President Donald Trump signed a June 2 executive order creating a voluntary 30-day pre-release review for frontier models. The sequencing is its own statement: Congress wants in.
The fight everyone is actually having is over preemption. The draft would freeze state laws specifically regulating AI model development for three years, narrower than the 10-year Senate moratorium the chamber killed 99-1 in July 2025. Trahan’s office named California’s AB 2013 training-data disclosure law and part of SB 942’s watermarking provisions as casualties. State use and deployment rules survive.
House AI Commission co-chairs, including Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), said the draft “cannot serve as the basis for productive dialogue.” Trahan called it “an opening bid, not a final answer.” Stakeholder feedback runs through summer.
The 99-1 vote is the ghost in the room. Any preemption number above zero reopens that wound, and three years is still a number above zero.
Sources
- Obernolte, Trahan release a discussion draft of the Great American AI Act
- Bipartisan AI draft proposes three-year preemption of state laws, Roll Call
- Unpacking the Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026, Tech Policy Press
- Trump Administration and House Lawmakers Launch New AI Governance Initiatives, Akin Gump
- Frontier AI Goes Federal: How the Great American AI Act Compares to State Laws, FPF
Sources
- Obernolte, Trahan release a discussion draft of the Great American AI Act
- Bipartisan AI draft proposes three-year preemption of state laws — Roll Call
- Unpacking the Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026 — Tech Policy Press
- Trump Administration and House Lawmakers Launch New AI Governance Initiatives — Akin Gump
- Frontier AI Goes Federal: How the Great American AI Act Compares to State Laws — FPF