Obernolte on Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Rep. Jay Obernolte sat down with Axios on Tuesday at the State of the Net Conference to discuss what's next for AI policy on the Hill.
The big picture: Obernolte last Congress headed up the House AI task force, which unveiled its bipartisan legislative roadmap in December.
- What the task force will look like this year is still to be determined, and Obernolte told Axios he's pushing for the House to set up an AI select committee.
- He's also the chair of the House Science Research and Technology Subcommittee.
Here are some of the key quotes from his conversation with us.
On the House AI task force: "We are in discussions about what the task force will look like this year. I'm pushing for the formation of an AI select committee."
- "We're getting some pushback from the existing policy committees feeling like we want to steal their jurisdiction away, which we're not trying to do."
- "I don't care if we introduce legislation and it gets referred, dual referred or triple referred to different policy committees. I just think we need a nucleus to get it launched."
On the appropriations process: "My goodness, I have to avoid four letter words here if I'm going to describe the appropriations process currently."
- "I actually think if you look at the way that the Trump administration is approaching the reorganization of the executive branch, they're trying to be very cognizant of what is necessary and required and what is not."
- "And, you know, I think that when you parse it down to what we're saying is necessary, we're gonna have agreement on that."
On DOGE: "I am a deep believer in the government's role in funding basic sciences, and I've been a strong proponent of increasing funding in places where it made sense."
- "Having said all of that, if you look at some of the stuff that DOGE has found, it's horrifying the money that has been spent."
- "And so I think when the dust settles — I know there's a lot of fear and angst out there — but think when the dust settles, you'll find that the stuff that's getting cut is the stuff that was pretty wasteful and difficult to justify to the taxpayers why their money is going towards that in an era where we're running a $2 trillion budget deficit."
