Bill controls exports of powerful computer chips to certain countries.
S. 4456 — AI OVERWATCH Act · Filed by Jim Banks (R-IN) · 10 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
The bill requires the Commerce Department to approve each chip sale. It names six countries: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and others. The most powerful chips cannot be sold to these countries. All chip exports stop for 14 days while the government makes an AI plan. U.S. companies can skip the rules if they meet security standards.
Who it affects
Congress gains power to review and stop chip exports. The government can block sales to countries it sees as threats. Tech companies that make or sell chips face new export rules.
One thing to notice
Companies that meet security standards can export chips without Congress reviewing each sale. The Commerce Department can change which chips are controlled every 24 months. Congress gets only 30 days' notice of these changes.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
10 cosponsors: 6 Democrats, 4 Republicans.
- Apr 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Apr 30, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
5 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 5 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $1,118,894 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 25 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 78% of bills with any report.
Jim Banks, who sponsored the bill, received $576,126 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Semiconductor Industry Association — $460,000 in 1 report
- Arm Inc — $250,000 in 1 report
- The Ai Policy Network Inc. — $188,894 in 1 report
- Heritage Action for America — $140,000 in 1 report
- Anthropic — $80,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- Commerce Department — The U.S. government agency that handles trade and business rules.
- security standards — Rules that companies must follow to keep information and systems safe.
- chip exports — Sales of computer chips to other countries.
- 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 (18,446 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 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 Jun 2026 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-01.
“Bill controls exports of powerful computer chips to certain countries.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s4456/simple Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.