Debate Desk
Should Congress Hand New Fields Like AI to Expert Agencies to Regulate?
A new technology needs rules, and who writes them matters: Congress should set the principles and leave agencies the details, not the reverse.
The claim
Artificial intelligence moves fast, the argument goes, and Congress does not have the technical expertise to write detailed rules. It should create an expert agency with broad authority to adapt rules as the technology changes.
The answer in three points
- A new field has the same constitutional problem as an old one. Article I gives the lawmaking power to Congress, and a broad delegation to an agency to regulate a technology that touches the whole economy leaves the key decisions to officials who are not elected.
- Congress can set the principles and limits while leaving the details to agencies. It can state what is prohibited, such as fraud, discrimination and harm to children, require transparency and allow review by courts. Narrow, clear statutes are more durable than open-ended grants of power.
- The risks of overregulation are real. A permit or licensing regime tends to favor large incumbents who can afford compliance and to slow new entrants, while the country competes with China in the technology. Existing laws on fraud, product liability and civil rights already apply, and states are experimenting. Conservatives differ on how much new law is needed.
The approach that has worked for new fields in the past was to pass clear, limited laws and let courts and experience refine them. AI is new, and the temptation to hand it to a new agency should be resisted until Congress has said what it wants.
The numbers
- The Supreme Court decided West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, holding that agencies need clear congressional authorization to decide questions of vast economic and political significance.
- The Federal Register published 2,441 final rules in 2025 and 3,248 in 2024.
- The Supreme Court decided Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo in 2024, ending Chevron deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes.
What they will say next
"Congress is too slow and divided." It is, and that is a reason to make narrow laws it can pass. Speed that bypasses the legislature is not a virtue.
"Experts are needed to understand the models." Congress can hear experts and use its own staff. Agencies can offer technical standards under law.
"Without a regulator, harms will go unchecked." The courts and existing statutes address many harms, and Congress can add to them.
"China will not wait." Which is why America should avoid slowing its own innovators with rules that are unclear.
Rules for new technology should be clear, limited and written by those who answer to the voters.
"The European Union has already regulated AI." It has, with a comprehensive law that critics in Europe say may slow investment and favor incumbents. America can learn from that experience. A more modest path of targeted laws on specific harms, enforced through existing courts, lets the technology develop while protecting people from fraud and abuse.