Bill requires testing of powerful AI systems before they launch.
S. 2938 — Artificial Intelligence Risk Evaluation Act of 2025 · Filed by Josh Hawley (R-MO) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 29, 2025 · Hearing held
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What it does
The Secretary of Energy must set up a testing program within 90 days. Developers of very powerful AI systems must give the government their code and training data. The program will run tests to find risks like loss of control. Companies cannot launch advanced AI systems unless they follow the rules. Companies that break the rules pay at least one million dollars per day.
Who it affects
People get government checks on powerful AI systems before they are used. Developers of advanced AI systems must test their work and share details.
One thing to notice
Developers must hand over secret code and training data to the government. The bill lets the government seize AI systems if they pose extreme danger.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Sep 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 29, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
- Sep 30, 2026 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Hearings held”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 2 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $608,894 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 22 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
Josh Hawley, who sponsored the bill, received $68,000 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Lenovo (united States) Inc. — $420,000 in 1 report
- The Ai Policy Network Inc. — $188,894 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- advanced AI systems — Artificial intelligence trained on more than 10 to the 26th power computing operations.
- testing program — A system to check if AI works safely and does not cause harm.
- training data — Information used to teach an AI system how to work.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (12,188 characters) on May 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,606 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 15, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-30.
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