HR 10981
To direct the Secretary of Commerce to promulgate regulations related to certain artificial intelligence models, and for other purposes.
TL;DR
Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) introduced this bill to direct the Secretary of Commerce to write new regulations for certain AI models. The specifics will be filled in through the regulatory process, but it signals federal oversight is coming for advanced AI systems, likely focused on frontier or high-capability models.
How This Might Impact Your Business
AI developers building large or advanced models would face new Commerce Department rules, with specifics to be determined through rulemaking after passage.
Cloud providers and AI infrastructure companies (AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle) would likely need to track and report on which customers are training or deploying covered models.
Enterprise AI users in finance, healthcare, and defense should expect downstream compliance obligations once vendors adjust to new federal rules.
Bill is currently in committee (Energy and Commerce, plus House Intelligence), meaning it has a long path before becoming law and language could shift significantly.
No penalties, thresholds, or deadlines are specified yet in the public text, so compliance costs cannot be estimated.
National security review appears to be a component given Intelligence Committee referral, suggesting export controls or foreign access restrictions may be part of the regulatory package.
Small businesses using off-the-shelf AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini) are unlikely to face direct obligations, though vendor terms may change.
What Should You Do
Ask your legal or policy team to track HR 10981 through the Energy and Commerce Committee and flag any markup or hearing dates.
If you develop foundation models or fine-tune large models, start documenting training data sources, compute usage, and model capabilities now; these are the metrics federal rules typically target.
Review contracts with AI vendors to confirm they will absorb compliance costs rather than pass them through, and add regulatory change clauses where missing.
Brief your executive team that federal AI regulation from Commerce is gaining bipartisan momentum, so budget for a compliance function in 2025-2026 planning.
Monitor parallel bills (SB 1047 successors, the AI Diffusion Rule) since any final regulation will likely harmonize with existing Commerce and BIS frameworks.
Who It Affects
Sponsors
Status Timeline
committee
Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on Intelligence (Permanent Select), for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
November 10, 2026