Bill limits sales of advanced computer chips to certain countries.
S. 4456 — AI OVERWATCH Act · Filed by Jim Banks (R-IN) · 9 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The bill requires the Commerce Department to approve chip sales. Sales go to countries like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. The most powerful chips cannot be sold at all. Less powerful chips need approval if they won't be used for military or surveillance purposes. Congress gets 30 days to review each sale.
Who it affects
U.S. chip makers and companies that sell chips overseas are affected. Countries that want to buy advanced chips from the U.S. are affected.
One thing to notice
The bill says rules must be followed, but the actual rules have not been written yet. An 'American Artificial Intelligence Victory Strategy' will be submitted later.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
9 cosponsors: 5 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 $546,126 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.
- surveillance — Watching or monitoring people or activities, often without their knowledge.
- military — Armed forces used by a country for defense or war.
- 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 full bill text on Jun 3, 2026; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 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 2026-09-17.
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