{"slug": "the-ai-regulatory-commission", "title": "The AI Regulatory Commission", "summary": "A legal scholar proposes creating an AI Regulatory Commission (AIRC) modeled on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the EPA, arguing the United States needs it now due to current risks and growing public concern. The proposal outlines design choices including multimember leadership, independence from political pressure, investigatory and rulemaking authority, civil penalty powers, emergency order authority, and possible industry funding. The author stresses the notes are preliminary and tentative but insists the case for an AIRC is clear.", "body_md": "The United States has a Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It has an Environmental Protection Agency. It has a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the most recent product of a sustained legislative and executive branch effort to design a new agency).\n\nThe United States needs an AI Regulatory Commission (AIRC), and it needs it now. It needs an AIRC both because of current risks and because of growing public concerns.\n\nThe AIRC could be accompanied by other measures from Congress; it need not and should not exhaust legislative responses. But it would be an important part of those responses.\n\nThe hard questions, of course, involve design details. The AIRC could be relatively weak; it could be extraordinarily powerful. Consider a few notes, which should be taken as preliminary, incomplete, and tentative.\n\n1. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was created as an independent agency; the EPA was created as an executive agency.\n2. The NRC is a multimember agency with a chair. The EPA is a single-headed agency.\n3. There is a good argument, in principle, that the AIRC should be a multimember agency with a chair. A multimember agency (five is a good number) is more deliberative, of course, and it incorporates more perspectives at the highest levels.\n4. The Supreme Court has recently thrown the whole idea of independent agencies into the constitutional garbage heap, with an exception for the Federal Reserve Board (alongside some other possible exceptions). Putting the question of constitutional authority to one side: There is a good argument, in principle, that the AIRC should be an independent agency, to reduce political pressures in this domain. (There are counterarguments.)\n5. It is unlikely (but not impossible) that Congress has the constitutional authority to create an independent AIRC. If the AIRC is not independent, the President might agree, in public, that he will respect a “for cause” protection of its members from removal. This agreement would not be enforceable, but still, it could be important.\n6. The AIRC might have duties of consultation in certain cases, as, for example, with the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the Director of OMB.\n7. The AIRC might be required to produce a report on risks and dangers within 90 days of its creation. There mjght be a classified and a nonclassified version.\n8. The AIRC should be given investigatory and factfinding authority.\n9. The AIRC might be funded by AI companies, a requirement of law. (This is not clear.)\n10. The AIRC might have licensing authority. (This is not clear.)\n11. The AIRC should be given the authority to require periodic disclosures and reports from AI companies, with appropriate safeguards and qualifications.\n12. The AIRC should be given the authority to impose civil penalties, subject to judicial review.\n13. The AIRC should be given rulemaking authority, subject to ordinary standards in the Administrative Procedure Act, including judicial review.\n14. The AIRC’s rulemaking authority might generally require consideration of costs and benefits, specified and spelled out in a sentence or two.\n15. The AIRC should be given the authority to issue emergency rules and orders against imminent or catastrophic threats. Such authority could exist under (13), with the APA’s good cause exception, but it would be best to have explicit authority to this effect, with judicial review (probably).\n16. The AIRC should be authorized to coordinate with and gather information from parallel or similar entities in other nations, in consultation with (for example) the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State, USTR, and the Director of OMB.\n\nThese notes are preliminary, incomplete, and tentative. But the following seems clear: The United States needs an AI Regulatory Commission (AIRC), and it needs it now.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-regulatory-commission", "canonical_source": "https://casssunstein.substack.com/p/the-ai-regulatory-commission", "published_at": "2026-09-11 14:03:41+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-19 03:53:51.399145+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["AI Regulatory Commission", "Nuclear Regulatory Commission", "Environmental Protection Agency", "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau", "Congress", "Supreme Court", "Federal Reserve Board", "Department of Defense"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-regulatory-commission", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-regulatory-commission.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-regulatory-commission.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-regulatory-commission.jsonld"}}