Ben Ray Luján urges Senate leadership to form AI select committee
The New Mexico senator joins a growing chorus of lawmakers demanding Congress build dedicated infrastructure for AI oversight.
Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on September 25 calling for the creation of a bipartisan Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. The pitch: Congress needs a dedicated body to wrangle the sprawling policy questions that AI keeps generating faster than any existing committee can answer them.
Luján isn’t the first senator to make this ask. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) sent his own letter with a similar request on September 9, roughly two weeks earlier.
Why a select committee, and why now
AI policy currently falls under the jurisdiction of multiple Senate committees, from Commerce to Armed Services to Judiciary. A select committee would consolidate that work. According to Luján’s framing, the body would examine both the opportunities and risks of AI, coordinate oversight across jurisdictions, and recommend specific legislative actions.
Gallego’s earlier letter zeroed in on specific areas the committee should scrutinize: national security, workforce displacement, election integrity, and critical infrastructure.
The timing also coincides with a broader groundswell outside the Senate. A bipartisan coalition of 26 state attorneys general called for national AI safety regulations around the same dates, September 24 and 25.
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Congress’s AI track record is thin
Congress has spent the better part of a year doing relatively little on AI legislation. Individual lawmakers have tried piecemeal approaches. Luján himself previously co-sponsored the TEST AI Act, a bill aimed at improving testing and evaluation standards for AI systems.
The regulatory landscape is shifting fast
The European Union has already moved forward with its AI Act, creating the first comprehensive legal framework for the technology. China has implemented its own set of AI governance rules. The US, despite being home to the companies building the most powerful AI systems on the planet, remains without a federal regulatory framework.
The 26 attorneys general pushing for national standards underscore another dimension of the problem. Without federal action, states are increasingly likely to create their own AI regulations, creating compliance challenges for companies operating across state lines.