Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski are out with legislation to bolster the Energy Department's role in AI research.
Why it matters: This would solidify DOE at the center of the federal AI universe and help the study of the technology's power use and applications in the energy sector.
Driving the news: The bill, introduced yesterday, would formally authorize DOE's Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security and Technology (FASST) initiative.
- It would also require a strategy for AI's applications in the energy sector and direct FERC to do a rulemaking to use advanced tech to speed up interconnection queues.
- And it would authorize a new Office of Critical and Emerging Technology.
Between the lines: DOE is already doing a ton in this space, but this could help coordinate work among the national labs and sub-agencies.
- "Congress sees an opportunity that if you're going to invest so much in AI at DOE, it would be great for all the national labs to be talking to each other," said Divyansh Kaushik, a fellow at American Policy Ventures.
What we're watching: This could hit the committee markup schedule and become a lame-duck candidate.
