{"id":87279,"topic":"ai","source":"KVII","title":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns - KVII","url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","url_hash":"70f23eef3e0757ca677d22b17db6bce347208ba7","author":"","summary":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns KVII","content":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed.\nCalls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans. That push has extended to Congress, where many lawmakers have pushed for the chamber to move on legislation before the midterms.\nAround 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of data centers that can be built, including most Republicans and Democrats, according to a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. A growing list of polls have also found most Americans on both sides of the aisle are opposed to data centers being built in their community.\nWhile AI does not rank as highly on voters’ priority lists as other issues like the economy and cost of living, it is becoming more intertwined with those concerns amid questions about electricity costs, jobs and its larger impacts on society.\nDespite ample proposals in both chambers for bills regulating development, creating guardrails or requiring a “kill switch” if an AI agent escapes human control, Congress does not appear to be on track to address the issue in time for the midterms amid partisan disagreements and a lack of consensus within the parties of how to best address the issue.\nThe inaction leaves lawmakers returning home to face voters will little progress to point to as concerns about data centers and warnings of AI going rogue mount.\nData centers have emerged as a key flashpoint in races across the country, with numerous Republicans and Democrats joining efforts to pause construction or put more stringent requirements in place. Much of the concern about data centers has been driven by fears they will drive up electricity prices in surrounding areas, which also touches on cost-of-living frustrations that are a priority for voters deciding who to vote for in November.\nThe White House has sought to address concerns about utility bills with data centers and gotten many large tech companies to sign onto a “ratepayer protection pledge” asking companies to pay for grid upgrades and electricity costs when building a data center.\nThe House also passed a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting ratepayers from high energy bills associated with data centers prior to leaving town, but efforts to fast-track it through the Senate were blocked amid competing proposals and a debate about how far federal protections should go. The Ratepayer Protection Act sailed through the House and would require state utility commissions to consider frameworks to ensure tech companies pay for the electricity and grid upgrades needed to support new data centers.\nWhile the bill had broad bipartisan backing, House Republicans had hoped the bill would give GOP candidates a response with voters in the nationwide backlash over data centers. Its chances in the Senate are unclear, with some Democrats arguing it does not go far enough to ensure tech companies foot the bill.\n“It just really makes a whole bunch of folks in D.C. look hapless and ignorant, and worst of all, unwilling to help,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University.\nThe debate is moving beyond the potential costs of the infrastructure to support AI and onto questions about how far the technology should be able to advance without government intervention.\nVoters are also growing more concerned about the impact AI is having on society and increasingly say Congress should step in to slow down its development amid the warnings about it advancing beyond human control.\nTrump has been adamantly opposed to new regulations curtailing the development of AI, arguing putting guardrails in place would prevent the U.S. from beating China in the race to develop the technology and the warnings of rogue AI were a “hoax.”\n“That puts the Republicans on their back foot, even if they never were pro-AI or pro data center to begin with,” Dagnes said. “Then you compound it with the fact that Congress has done very little about anything. Sending them home without even talking about this is deeply problematic for all of them, but especially for the party where the leader said it's a hoax.”\nHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has also thrown cold water on AI regulation.\n“Here's the problem: If I called an emergency session today and I brought everybody in the house and said, ‘Let's regulate AI,’ nobody in the room knows yet what that should look like,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Why? Because we don't have the latest information.”\nDebate over whether to step in to address fears of AI spiraling out of control have also exposed divisions within the parties. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for greater oversight of the industry, while there is also questions within Congress about whether they know enough about the technology to figure how or if it should be regulated.\nThe growing public skepticism towards AI has not turned into an advantage for either party so far. In a New York Times-Sienna University survey released this week, voters are roughly split on which party they trust more to deal with AI with Republicans at 42% and Democrats with 40%.\nAI also not broken cleanly along partisan lines that typically define most political issues, as both parties have yet to coalesce around a policy platform for it. Voters and candidates on both sides of the aisle are wary of data centers and the impact the technology will have on society from economic concerns to fears it will spiral out of control.","image_url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/resources/media2/16x9/4095/1320/0x214/90/c77ce2f4-3a7f-4a7f-ae9b-c9a98d01d8a8-GettyImages2295448174.jpg","lang":"en","published_at":"2026-09-21T13:25:14+00:00","fetched_at":"2026-09-21T15:15:04+00:00","status":"read","starred":0,"extract_state":"ok","summary_auto":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed. Calls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans.","cluster_id":3484789,"extract_retries":0,"extract_error":null,"contract_version":"news_item.v1","format_contract_version":"news_item_formats.v1","dedup_url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571,"usable_text_length":5957,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571}},"news_item":{"id":87279,"canonical_url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","source_url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","title":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns - KVII","source_name":"KVII","author":null,"published_at":"2026-09-21T13:25:14+00:00","locale":"en","topic":"ai","tags":[],"rss_summary":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns KVII","full_text":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed.\nCalls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans. That push has extended to Congress, where many lawmakers have pushed for the chamber to move on legislation before the midterms.\nAround 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of data centers that can be built, including most Republicans and Democrats, according to a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. A growing list of polls have also found most Americans on both sides of the aisle are opposed to data centers being built in their community.\nWhile AI does not rank as highly on voters’ priority lists as other issues like the economy and cost of living, it is becoming more intertwined with those concerns amid questions about electricity costs, jobs and its larger impacts on society.\nDespite ample proposals in both chambers for bills regulating development, creating guardrails or requiring a “kill switch” if an AI agent escapes human control, Congress does not appear to be on track to address the issue in time for the midterms amid partisan disagreements and a lack of consensus within the parties of how to best address the issue.\nThe inaction leaves lawmakers returning home to face voters will little progress to point to as concerns about data centers and warnings of AI going rogue mount.\nData centers have emerged as a key flashpoint in races across the country, with numerous Republicans and Democrats joining efforts to pause construction or put more stringent requirements in place. Much of the concern about data centers has been driven by fears they will drive up electricity prices in surrounding areas, which also touches on cost-of-living frustrations that are a priority for voters deciding who to vote for in November.\nThe White House has sought to address concerns about utility bills with data centers and gotten many large tech companies to sign onto a “ratepayer protection pledge” asking companies to pay for grid upgrades and electricity costs when building a data center.\nThe House also passed a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting ratepayers from high energy bills associated with data centers prior to leaving town, but efforts to fast-track it through the Senate were blocked amid competing proposals and a debate about how far federal protections should go. The Ratepayer Protection Act sailed through the House and would require state utility commissions to consider frameworks to ensure tech companies pay for the electricity and grid upgrades needed to support new data centers.\nWhile the bill had broad bipartisan backing, House Republicans had hoped the bill would give GOP candidates a response with voters in the nationwide backlash over data centers. Its chances in the Senate are unclear, with some Democrats arguing it does not go far enough to ensure tech companies foot the bill.\n“It just really makes a whole bunch of folks in D.C. look hapless and ignorant, and worst of all, unwilling to help,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University.\nThe debate is moving beyond the potential costs of the infrastructure to support AI and onto questions about how far the technology should be able to advance without government intervention.\nVoters are also growing more concerned about the impact AI is having on society and increasingly say Congress should step in to slow down its development amid the warnings about it advancing beyond human control.\nTrump has been adamantly opposed to new regulations curtailing the development of AI, arguing putting guardrails in place would prevent the U.S. from beating China in the race to develop the technology and the warnings of rogue AI were a “hoax.”\n“That puts the Republicans on their back foot, even if they never were pro-AI or pro data center to begin with,” Dagnes said. “Then you compound it with the fact that Congress has done very little about anything. Sending them home without even talking about this is deeply problematic for all of them, but especially for the party where the leader said it's a hoax.”\nHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has also thrown cold water on AI regulation.\n“Here's the problem: If I called an emergency session today and I brought everybody in the house and said, ‘Let's regulate AI,’ nobody in the room knows yet what that should look like,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Why? Because we don't have the latest information.”\nDebate over whether to step in to address fears of AI spiraling out of control have also exposed divisions within the parties. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for greater oversight of the industry, while there is also questions within Congress about whether they know enough about the technology to figure how or if it should be regulated.\nThe growing public skepticism towards AI has not turned into an advantage for either party so far. In a New York Times-Sienna University survey released this week, voters are roughly split on which party they trust more to deal with AI with Republicans at 42% and Democrats with 40%.\nAI also not broken cleanly along partisan lines that typically define most political issues, as both parties have yet to coalesce around a policy platform for it. Voters and candidates on both sides of the aisle are wary of data centers and the impact the technology will have on society from economic concerns to fears it will spiral out of control.","excerpt":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed. Calls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans.","extraction":{"state":"ok","confidence":0.9,"error":null,"explanation":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571,"usable_text_length":5957,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571}}},"display_formats":["compact","card","full","digest_section","json"]},"daily_stack_record":{"title":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns - KVII","url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","summary":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed. Calls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans.","source":"KVII","date":"2026-09-21T13:25:14+00:00","content":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed.\nCalls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans. That push has extended to Congress, where many lawmakers have pushed for the chamber to move on legislation before the midterms.\nAround 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of data centers that can be built, including most Republicans and Democrats, according to a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. A growing list of polls have also found most Americans on both sides of the aisle are opposed to data centers being built in their community.\nWhile AI does not rank as highly on voters’ priority lists as other issues like the economy and cost of living, it is becoming more intertwined with those concerns amid questions about electricity costs, jobs and its larger impacts on society.\nDespite ample proposals in both chambers for bills regulating development, creating guardrails or requiring a “kill switch” if an AI agent escapes human control, Congress does not appear to be on track to address the issue in time for the midterms amid partisan disagreements and a lack of consensus within the parties of how to best address the issue.\nThe inaction leaves lawmakers returning home to face voters will little progress to point to as concerns about data centers and warnings of AI going rogue mount.\nData centers have emerged as a key flashpoint in races across the country, with numerous Republicans and Democrats joining efforts to pause construction or put more stringent requirements in place. Much of the concern about data centers has been driven by fears they will drive up electricity prices in surrounding areas, which also touches on cost-of-living frustrations that are a priority for voters deciding who to vote for in November.\nThe White House has sought to address concerns about utility bills with data centers and gotten many large tech companies to sign onto a “ratepayer protection pledge” asking companies to pay for grid upgrades and electricity costs when building a data center.\nThe House also passed a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting ratepayers from high energy bills associated with data centers prior to leaving town, but efforts to fast-track it through the Senate were blocked amid competing proposals and a debate about how far federal protections should go. The Ratepayer Protection Act sailed through the House and would require state utility commissions to consider frameworks to ensure tech companies pay for the electricity and grid upgrades needed to support new data centers.\nWhile the bill had broad bipartisan backing, House Republicans had hoped the bill would give GOP candidates a response with voters in the nationwide backlash over data centers. Its chances in the Senate are unclear, with some Democrats arguing it does not go far enough to ensure tech companies foot the bill.\n“It just really makes a whole bunch of folks in D.C. look hapless and ignorant, and worst of all, unwilling to help,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University.\nThe debate is moving beyond the potential costs of the infrastructure to support AI and onto questions about how far the technology should be able to advance without government intervention.\nVoters are also growing more concerned about the impact AI is having on society and increasingly say Congress should step in to slow down its development amid the warnings about it advancing beyond human control.\nTrump has been adamantly opposed to new regulations curtailing the development of AI, arguing putting guardrails in place would prevent the U.S. from beating China in the race to develop the technology and the warnings of rogue AI were a “hoax.”\n“That puts the Republicans on their back foot, even if they never were pro-AI or pro data center to begin with,” Dagnes said. “Then you compound it with the fact that Congress has done very little about anything. Sending them home without even talking about this is deeply problematic for all of them, but especially for the party where the leader said it's a hoax.”\nHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has also thrown cold water on AI regulation.\n“Here's the problem: If I called an emergency session today and I brought everybody in the house and said, ‘Let's regulate AI,’ nobody in the room knows yet what that should look like,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Why? Because we don't have the latest information.”\nDebate over whether to step in to address fears of AI spiraling out of control have also exposed divisions within the parties. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for greater oversight of the industry, while there is also questions within Congress about whether they know enough about the technology to figure how or if it should be regulated.\nThe growing public skepticism towards AI has not turned into an advantage for either party so far. In a New York Times-Sienna University survey released this week, voters are roughly split on which party they trust more to deal with AI with Republicans at 42% and Democrats with 40%.\nAI also not broken cleanly along partisan lines that typically define most political issues, as both parties have yet to coalesce around a policy platform for it. 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Calls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans.","full_text":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed.\nCalls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans. That push has extended to Congress, where many lawmakers have pushed for the chamber to move on legislation before the midterms.\nAround 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of data centers that can be built, including most Republicans and Democrats, according to a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. A growing list of polls have also found most Americans on both sides of the aisle are opposed to data centers being built in their community.\nWhile AI does not rank as highly on voters’ priority lists as other issues like the economy and cost of living, it is becoming more intertwined with those concerns amid questions about electricity costs, jobs and its larger impacts on society.\nDespite ample proposals in both chambers for bills regulating development, creating guardrails or requiring a “kill switch” if an AI agent escapes human control, Congress does not appear to be on track to address the issue in time for the midterms amid partisan disagreements and a lack of consensus within the parties of how to best address the issue.\nThe inaction leaves lawmakers returning home to face voters will little progress to point to as concerns about data centers and warnings of AI going rogue mount.\nData centers have emerged as a key flashpoint in races across the country, with numerous Republicans and Democrats joining efforts to pause construction or put more stringent requirements in place. Much of the concern about data centers has been driven by fears they will drive up electricity prices in surrounding areas, which also touches on cost-of-living frustrations that are a priority for voters deciding who to vote for in November.\nThe White House has sought to address concerns about utility bills with data centers and gotten many large tech companies to sign onto a “ratepayer protection pledge” asking companies to pay for grid upgrades and electricity costs when building a data center.\nThe House also passed a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting ratepayers from high energy bills associated with data centers prior to leaving town, but efforts to fast-track it through the Senate were blocked amid competing proposals and a debate about how far federal protections should go. The Ratepayer Protection Act sailed through the House and would require state utility commissions to consider frameworks to ensure tech companies pay for the electricity and grid upgrades needed to support new data centers.\nWhile the bill had broad bipartisan backing, House Republicans had hoped the bill would give GOP candidates a response with voters in the nationwide backlash over data centers. Its chances in the Senate are unclear, with some Democrats arguing it does not go far enough to ensure tech companies foot the bill.\n“It just really makes a whole bunch of folks in D.C. look hapless and ignorant, and worst of all, unwilling to help,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University.\nThe debate is moving beyond the potential costs of the infrastructure to support AI and onto questions about how far the technology should be able to advance without government intervention.\nVoters are also growing more concerned about the impact AI is having on society and increasingly say Congress should step in to slow down its development amid the warnings about it advancing beyond human control.\nTrump has been adamantly opposed to new regulations curtailing the development of AI, arguing putting guardrails in place would prevent the U.S. from beating China in the race to develop the technology and the warnings of rogue AI were a “hoax.”\n“That puts the Republicans on their back foot, even if they never were pro-AI or pro data center to begin with,” Dagnes said. “Then you compound it with the fact that Congress has done very little about anything. Sending them home without even talking about this is deeply problematic for all of them, but especially for the party where the leader said it's a hoax.”\nHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has also thrown cold water on AI regulation.\n“Here's the problem: If I called an emergency session today and I brought everybody in the house and said, ‘Let's regulate AI,’ nobody in the room knows yet what that should look like,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Why? Because we don't have the latest information.”\nDebate over whether to step in to address fears of AI spiraling out of control have also exposed divisions within the parties. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for greater oversight of the industry, while there is also questions within Congress about whether they know enough about the technology to figure how or if it should be regulated.\nThe growing public skepticism towards AI has not turned into an advantage for either party so far. In a New York Times-Sienna University survey released this week, voters are roughly split on which party they trust more to deal with AI with Republicans at 42% and Democrats with 40%.\nAI also not broken cleanly along partisan lines that typically define most political issues, as both parties have yet to coalesce around a policy platform for it. Voters and candidates on both sides of the aisle are wary of data centers and the impact the technology will have on society from economic concerns to fears it will spiral out of control.","reading_time_min":5,"extraction":{"state":"ok","confidence":0.9,"error":null,"explanation":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571,"usable_text_length":5957,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571}}},"quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571,"usable_text_length":5957,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571}},"actions":{"read":"/item/87279","export_markdown":"/api/items/87279/export?format=markdown","export_json":"/api/items/87279/export?format=json","diagnose":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns"}},"digest":{"id":87279,"title":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns - KVII","url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","source":"KVII","topic":"ai","published_at":"2026-09-21T13:25:14+00:00","excerpt":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns WASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether…","quality_bucket":"high","quality_reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","reading_time_min":5,"cluster_id":3484789},"card":{"display_title":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns - KVII","subtitle":"KVII · 2026-09-21","summary":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns WASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over…","badges":["quality:high"],"links":{"read":"/item/87279","original":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","diagnose":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns"},"quality_warning":null},"export":{"title":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns - KVII","url":"https://abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","summary":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed. Calls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans.","source":"KVII","date":"2026-09-21T13:25:14+00:00","content":"Congress heads toward midterms without answers to growing AI concerns\nWASHINGTON (TNND) — A growing debate over the development of artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose are expanding the political fight over the technology beyond building data centers to whether Washington should put limits on how quickly the increasingly powerful systems are able to be developed.\nCalls to create guardrails over AI development have ramped up over the last week after several researchers and executives sounded alarms about the risks the technology may soon pose to humans. That push has extended to Congress, where many lawmakers have pushed for the chamber to move on legislation before the midterms.\nAround 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of data centers that can be built, including most Republicans and Democrats, according to a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. A growing list of polls have also found most Americans on both sides of the aisle are opposed to data centers being built in their community.\nWhile AI does not rank as highly on voters’ priority lists as other issues like the economy and cost of living, it is becoming more intertwined with those concerns amid questions about electricity costs, jobs and its larger impacts on society.\nDespite ample proposals in both chambers for bills regulating development, creating guardrails or requiring a “kill switch” if an AI agent escapes human control, Congress does not appear to be on track to address the issue in time for the midterms amid partisan disagreements and a lack of consensus within the parties of how to best address the issue.\nThe inaction leaves lawmakers returning home to face voters will little progress to point to as concerns about data centers and warnings of AI going rogue mount.\nData centers have emerged as a key flashpoint in races across the country, with numerous Republicans and Democrats joining efforts to pause construction or put more stringent requirements in place. Much of the concern about data centers has been driven by fears they will drive up electricity prices in surrounding areas, which also touches on cost-of-living frustrations that are a priority for voters deciding who to vote for in November.\nThe White House has sought to address concerns about utility bills with data centers and gotten many large tech companies to sign onto a “ratepayer protection pledge” asking companies to pay for grid upgrades and electricity costs when building a data center.\nThe House also passed a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting ratepayers from high energy bills associated with data centers prior to leaving town, but efforts to fast-track it through the Senate were blocked amid competing proposals and a debate about how far federal protections should go. The Ratepayer Protection Act sailed through the House and would require state utility commissions to consider frameworks to ensure tech companies pay for the electricity and grid upgrades needed to support new data centers.\nWhile the bill had broad bipartisan backing, House Republicans had hoped the bill would give GOP candidates a response with voters in the nationwide backlash over data centers. Its chances in the Senate are unclear, with some Democrats arguing it does not go far enough to ensure tech companies foot the bill.\n“It just really makes a whole bunch of folks in D.C. look hapless and ignorant, and worst of all, unwilling to help,” said Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University.\nThe debate is moving beyond the potential costs of the infrastructure to support AI and onto questions about how far the technology should be able to advance without government intervention.\nVoters are also growing more concerned about the impact AI is having on society and increasingly say Congress should step in to slow down its development amid the warnings about it advancing beyond human control.\nTrump has been adamantly opposed to new regulations curtailing the development of AI, arguing putting guardrails in place would prevent the U.S. from beating China in the race to develop the technology and the warnings of rogue AI were a “hoax.”\n“That puts the Republicans on their back foot, even if they never were pro-AI or pro data center to begin with,” Dagnes said. “Then you compound it with the fact that Congress has done very little about anything. Sending them home without even talking about this is deeply problematic for all of them, but especially for the party where the leader said it's a hoax.”\nHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has also thrown cold water on AI regulation.\n“Here's the problem: If I called an emergency session today and I brought everybody in the house and said, ‘Let's regulate AI,’ nobody in the room knows yet what that should look like,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Why? Because we don't have the latest information.”\nDebate over whether to step in to address fears of AI spiraling out of control have also exposed divisions within the parties. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for greater oversight of the industry, while there is also questions within Congress about whether they know enough about the technology to figure how or if it should be regulated.\nThe growing public skepticism towards AI has not turned into an advantage for either party so far. In a New York Times-Sienna University survey released this week, voters are roughly split on which party they trust more to deal with AI with Republicans at 42% and Democrats with 40%.\nAI also not broken cleanly along partisan lines that typically define most political issues, as both parties have yet to coalesce around a policy platform for it. Voters and candidates on both sides of the aisle are wary of data centers and the impact the technology will have on society from economic concerns to fears it will spiral out of control.","confidence":0.9,"diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//abc7amarillo.com/news/connect-to-congress/congress-heads-toward-midterms-without-answers-to-growing-ai-concerns","quality_bucket":"high","failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"quality_reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 5957 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571,"usable_text_length":5957,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":5957,"summary_length":571}},"tags":[],"format_contract_version":"news_item_formats.v1"}}}