AI–WISE Act
Download PDFSponsored by
Rep. Scholten, Hillary J. [D-MI-3]
ID: S001221
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 353.
December 12, 2025
Introduced
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
Committee Review
Floor Action
Passed House
Senate Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
📚 How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another "groundbreaking" bill from the esteemed members of Congress, who have clearly spent countless hours studying the intricacies of artificial intelligence and small business concerns. *eyeroll*
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The AI-WISE Act (because who doesn't love a good acronym?) aims to educate small businesses on the wonders of artificial intelligence tools. Because, apparently, these poor souls are too clueless to figure it out themselves. The bill's primary objective is to create educational resources and modules that will help small business concerns "critically evaluate" AI tools. I'm sure this will be a huge success, given the track record of government-created educational materials.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends the Small Business Act by adding a new section (49) that requires the Administrator to establish and maintain these educational resources and modules. It also creates an Advisory Working Group, because what's a government program without a committee? This group will consist of "experts" in AI, outreach, and education, who will provide guidance on the development of these materials.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** Small business concerns (i.e., those with fewer than 500 employees) are the primary beneficiaries of this bill. However, I'm sure the real winners will be the lobbying groups and PACs that have been pushing for more "education" and "awareness" about AI in small businesses. *cough* Tech industry donors *cough*
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a perfect example of Congress's favorite game: "Let's Create a New Bureaucracy!" The AI-WISE Act will likely lead to more government spending on "education" and "outreach," which will ultimately benefit the consultants, contractors, and lobbying groups that will be hired to create these materials. Meanwhile, small businesses will continue to struggle with the complexities of AI, and the bill's provisions will do little to address the real issues they face.
**Diagnosis:** The patient (Congress) is suffering from a severe case of "Tech-Envy," where they try to appear relevant by creating bills that sound innovative but ultimately accomplish nothing. The symptoms include:
* A $500K infection from tech industry PACs, which has led to the creation of this bill. * A severe lack of understanding about AI and its applications in small businesses. * A strong desire to create new bureaucracies and committees, despite their proven ineffectiveness.
**Treatment:** A healthy dose of skepticism and a strong antibiotic regimen to combat the influence of special interest groups. Unfortunately, this patient is unlikely to recover from its chronic case of "Congress-itis."
Related Topics
💰 Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Scholten, Hillary J. [D-MI-3]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
Cosponsors & Their Campaign Finance
This bill has 6 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
Rep. Downing, Troy [R-MT-2]
ID: D000634
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Gottheimer, Josh [D-NJ-5]
ID: G000583
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Fitzpatrick, Brian K. [R-PA-1]
ID: F000466
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Cisneros, Gilbert Ray [D-CA-31]
ID: C001123
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Goodlander, Maggie [D-NH-2]
ID: G000604
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Amo, Gabe [D-RI-1]
ID: A000380
Top Contributors
10
Donor Network - Rep. Scholten, Hillary J. [D-MI-3]
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 45 nodes and 45 connections
Total contributions: $232,077
Top Donors - Rep. Scholten, Hillary J. [D-MI-3]
Showing top 25 donors by contribution amount
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 751 — Small Business Administration implement relevant initiatives to reach small businesses. Programs would be nonduplicative and implemented on a first-come, first-served basis. l A modern, revamped, and streamlined SBA that better utilizes current technology and platforms for operations, for reporting, and in its programs to reach, service, and engage small businesses. l An Office of Advocacy that is strengthened by a renewed mandate and additional resources to protect against overregulation along with a research agenda that includes measuring the total cost that federal regulation imposes on small businesses. Accountability and Managerial Practice. The SBA lacks accountability and managerial practices to measure the effectiveness, success, and integrity of its various programs. As a future Administration evaluates agency structure and the particulars of how the SBA is spending appropriated funds, it should immediately require actions and procedures to compel a culture of accountability and perfor- mance. Specifically: l Require performance metrics and internal procedures to safeguard taxpayer dollars and program integrity. As noted in an October 2022 IG report, failure to adopt procedures that would reliably capture data and information for various programs, coupled with significant challenges and weaknesses regarding IT investments, systems development, and security controls, presents significant risks to program integrity and increased risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.34 Addressing these shortcomings and risks should be a priority challenge and action item for the next Administration. As underscored by the Inspector General in his introduction to the report, “Pandemic response has, in many instances, magnified the challenging systemic issues in SBA’s mission-related work.”35 l Review all internal government watchdog recommendations and require that SBA management implement or address outstanding and ongoing OIG and GAO recommendations within a specified time frame (ideally within 90 days of a recommendation) and on an ongoing basis. Strengthening the Office of Advocacy. The SBA Office of Advocacy (Advo- cacy) is “an independent office” within the SBA.36 It accounts for about one one-thousandth of SBA spending and 0.75 percent of SBA personnel. Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, both under its current authority and with suggested — 752 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise reforms, the Office of Advocacy could be a powerful weapon against the adminis- trative state’s regulatory extremism. l Amend the RFA so that all agencies are required to provide a copy of any proposed rule (other than bona fide emergency rules) along with initial regulatory flexibility analysis to the Office of Advocacy at least 60 days before a notice of proposed rulemaking is submitted for publication in the Federal Register. The Office of Advocacy would submit comments to agencies within 30 days, and each agency would have to consider these comments, make changes in the proposed rule based on those comments, or explain in a revised regulatory flexibility analysis why it chose not to change the proposed rule. The Office of Advocacy’s pre-proposing comments would be published on the agencies’ and its own websites. RFA economic analysis should be expanded to include indirect costs along with direct costs. In addition, the next Administration should require other agencies to seek Advocacy’s input. Currently, other agencies deny Advocacy the ability to enforce their duty to consider the effect of regulations on small entities by construing their regulations as not having significant economic impact, which would otherwise serve as a trigger for Advocacy’s input. Congress should presumptively exempt small businesses from new agency rules to force agencies to seek Advocacy’s input and permit new rules to apply to small businesses only with Advocacy signoff under specified criteria. l Increase the Office of Advocacy’s budget by at least 50 percent ($4.6 million). This would allow Advocacy to hire approximately 25 attorneys, economists, and scientists and enhance its role in the regulatory process. l Explicitly direct federal agencies to comply with the RFA. This would be similar to the approach adopted by President Trump in his January and February 2017 executive orders directing agencies to relieve the cost and burden of regulation on business.37 Advocacy should organize regional roundtables, onsite small-business visits, and an online platform to hear directly from small businesses and entities as it did from June 2017 through September 2018.38 This activity produced 26 letters to federal agencies and highlighted specific regulations that need reform and how Congress had addressed the most burdensome rules through the Congressional Review Act.39
Introduction
— 224 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Enhanced metrics for accuracy of classification. l A general simplification of the overall system for the benefit of users. On the back end, an ODNI-run declassification process that is faster, nimbler, default-to-automated, and larger-scale should be a priority. Additionally, investments in IT are required to deal with the growing volumes of CNSI collected and produced in the digital age, along with many years’ worth of existing analog and digital holdings that could provide valuable historical insights. An incoming Administration needs to explore options to prioritize funding for innovation in declassification management: for example, by establishing a budget line item specifically for the modernization of declassification or designating fund- ing for program classification management as a special-interest item. The Administration will also need to transition to using technology, including tools and services for managing Big Data (which provide a robust electronic record repository, making information within and across agencies easier to organize and locate and facilitating more rapid review and release capabilities for records of emerging interest); artificial intelligence/machine learning (which, when incor- porated into existing business practices, enables machine interpretation of unstructured text and data, applies decision support technology to enable more consistent classification decisions, and expedites reviews between agencies); and expansion of Commercial Cloud services (which facilitate the rapid testing and deployment of new tools and technologies). However, technology is not a panacea; human expertise in information holdings and routine validation of the technology will always be necessary. With or with- out machine assistance, agencies will require more people and more varied skill sets to improve their ability to meet the electronic records era’s classification and declassification demands and serve an incoming Administration’s goals. Broader U.S. Government and IC Intelligence Needs. Increasingly, con- flicts among U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are conducted in the realms of technology and finance.40 This challenge requires new tools, authorities, and technological expertise across the U.S. government, par- ticularly at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is housed at the Treasury Department. An incoming conservative President should task his DNI and Secretary of Commerce with increasing coordination, the resources needed for BIS and SCIF capacity, and proper and necessary intelligence sharing to counter the activities of multifaceted adversaries such as China. This would include additional work with private-sector expertise, granting clearances to niche sector experts and United States citizen commercial and financial partners as needed.
Introduction
— 224 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Enhanced metrics for accuracy of classification. l A general simplification of the overall system for the benefit of users. On the back end, an ODNI-run declassification process that is faster, nimbler, default-to-automated, and larger-scale should be a priority. Additionally, investments in IT are required to deal with the growing volumes of CNSI collected and produced in the digital age, along with many years’ worth of existing analog and digital holdings that could provide valuable historical insights. An incoming Administration needs to explore options to prioritize funding for innovation in declassification management: for example, by establishing a budget line item specifically for the modernization of declassification or designating fund- ing for program classification management as a special-interest item. The Administration will also need to transition to using technology, including tools and services for managing Big Data (which provide a robust electronic record repository, making information within and across agencies easier to organize and locate and facilitating more rapid review and release capabilities for records of emerging interest); artificial intelligence/machine learning (which, when incor- porated into existing business practices, enables machine interpretation of unstructured text and data, applies decision support technology to enable more consistent classification decisions, and expedites reviews between agencies); and expansion of Commercial Cloud services (which facilitate the rapid testing and deployment of new tools and technologies). However, technology is not a panacea; human expertise in information holdings and routine validation of the technology will always be necessary. With or with- out machine assistance, agencies will require more people and more varied skill sets to improve their ability to meet the electronic records era’s classification and declassification demands and serve an incoming Administration’s goals. Broader U.S. Government and IC Intelligence Needs. Increasingly, con- flicts among U.S. adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are conducted in the realms of technology and finance.40 This challenge requires new tools, authorities, and technological expertise across the U.S. government, par- ticularly at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is housed at the Treasury Department. An incoming conservative President should task his DNI and Secretary of Commerce with increasing coordination, the resources needed for BIS and SCIF capacity, and proper and necessary intelligence sharing to counter the activities of multifaceted adversaries such as China. This would include additional work with private-sector expertise, granting clearances to niche sector experts and United States citizen commercial and financial partners as needed. — 225 — Intelligence Community Cover in the Digital Age. Even in the public domain, it is becoming increas- ingly clear that protecting the identities of undercover intelligence officers is difficult in the digital age.41 The truth is that as our daily activities are conducted predominantly in the digital domain, our antiquated system for providing cover to undercover officers has lagged woefully behind the threat from foreign adversaries. The DIA, CIA, and FBI are increasingly aware of this threat and are devoting resources to the problem. Their back-office infrastructure, however, is such that they are still using methods for providing cover from decades past that put valuable intelligence officers at unnecessary risk. How intelligence officers and their fami- lies are taught to use smartphones and social media, travel, conduct banking, and take and share pictures—even how and when they are paid—can make it difficult to protect identities.42 Legends, fake backstories, and identities are often weak, incomplete, and unable to stand up to a basic Google search.43 Officers operat- ing under nonofficial cover are offered even less protection and training to help them succeed. In addition, ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS) techniques being refined by technologies emanating from the regimes in China and Russia will continue to be highly challenging for intelligence officers. An incoming Administration will need to double down on resourcing and training so that members of the IC will have the expertise they need to operate clandestinely (and successfully) against hard targets. Privacy Shield. For many years, the European Union (EU) has tried to force U.S. companies operating in Europe to follow its data privacy regulations. Misleading claims in the 2013 Snowden leaks destroyed the initial Safe Harbor Framework44 that allowed American companies to transfer data across the Atlantic; its succes- sor, the Privacy Shield Framework,45 was struck down by European courts on the grounds that it provides insufficient protections for EU citizens against hypothet- ical U.S. government surveillance. Those same European courts exempted the intelligence services of EU member states from the standards applied to the U.S., suggesting that trade protectionism may be the real motive behind data privacy regulations. In 2022, the Biden Administration negotiated a new agreement, the Trans-At- lantic Data Privacy Framework,46 intended to withstand European legal challenges. Given the fate of its predecessors, it is not certain that it will survive. Executive Order 14086, “Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activi- ties,”47 implements this new framework by attempting to align signals intelligence collection practices with European privacy regulations. At most, the executive order’s changes will be helpful support for the framework in future European litigation; at worst, they could throw sand in the gears of important intelli- gence programs. An incoming conservative President should reset Europe’s expectations. Brus- sels has always arbitraged the difference between being a military ally against, for
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.