Nicole Malliotakis

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican who represents Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, has joined a bipartisan effort to establish federal standards for the nation’s most advanced artificial intelligence models.

H.R. 9925, the Frontier Risk Oversight, National Transparency, Independent Evaluation, and Reporting (FRONTIER) Act, is being spearheaded by Rep. Jay Obernolte, a California Republican.

The bill would create a national, risk-based framework for developing and deploying advanced AI models.

Other cosponsors include Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat, Scott Franklin, a Florida Republican, Scott Peters, a California Democrat, Erin Houchin, an Indiana Republican, and Suhas Subramanyam, a Virginia Democrat.

Under the bill, requirements would scale based on the size of a frontier AI developer, covering areas such as model cards, risk-management frameworks, independent audits, incident reporting and ongoing assessments.

The measure aims to prevent states from creating conflicting regulations by establishing uniform national standards for transparency, auditing and catastrophic-risk reporting.

“We need a balanced approach to AI with common sense guardrails and a uniform national standard that protects Americans while allowing innovation to grow, and ensuring the United States stays ahead of China,” Malliotakis said. She added that the bipartisan bill “takes an important step toward that goal by establishing greater transparency, oversight and accountability for the most advanced AI systems.”

The congresswoman noted that OpenAI is among the stakeholders supporting the legislation. She emphasized the need for safeguards protecting consumers, privacy and national security while providing companies with certainty to innovate and compete globally.

Malliotakis signed on to the FRONTIER Act on Monday, about a week after she expressed a need to implement safeguards amid AI experts publicly raising concerns.

“We need to listen to industry leaders and experts who are sounding the alarm about the dangers and risks of artificial intelligence and develop a balanced and thoughtful approach,” Malliotakis previously said in a statement. “While we need to stay ahead of the curve and not fall behind China, we must also have safeguards in place to protect privacy, communities, the environment, our national security and humanity.”

“In my opinion, this would include national standards, federal licensing, consumer protections and mandatory incident reporting and response protocols to be in a position to intercept bad actors using AI for malice,” she added.