In a Senate Floor Speech, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly Calls for a Secure and Regulated AI System that Helps the American People

On September 17, 2025, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly put forth an AI for America Roadmap to make the emerging industry beneficial for all Americans.

Now a little over a year later, Senator Kelly was on the Senate floor, criticizing Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson for not taking the potential dangers of AI seriously, and called on the consideration and enactment of his new The Make AI Work for Americans Act.

In his remarks, the Senator first drew on his experiences as an Astronaut and Space Shuttle Pilot as an analogy for how public servants should be analyzing the concerns for the AI industry, saying:

“Hard to describe how it feels to be strapped to four and a half million pounds of fuel, waiting for three main engines and two solid rocket boosters to ignite underneath you. It gives you clarity because flying that thing is not one dangerous moment. It’s continuous. There’s always a catastrophic failure lurking around every corner. And when things go sideways on you, and you’re troubleshooting a cooling issue while managing an electrical failure, while mission control is telling you something that contradicts your instruments, it requires that you are keenly aware of what is happening. You figure out how to separate the signal from the noise. So you pay attention to the data. You do your very best to understand what is happening with a very complicated machine. You ignore the noise. You evaluate the numbers, and you work the problem. And you listen when the alarms are telling you something isn’t right.”

From there, Senator Kelly launched into his criticism of Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson’s unserious approach to the AI issue, commenting:

“…Nobody is steering the ship. While the people inside the industry discuss catastrophic damage and the chance that AI, and I quote, will kill us all by the end of the decade, the White House is actively lobbying against regulation.

Our President calls Americans’ fears a, quote, hoax and a sick conspiracy. He says that we don’t need new guardrails. And Speaker Johnson says that Congress isn’t qualified to make them. Instead, he wants a summit someday. But in the meantime, we’ll revisit it after a seven-week recess. When the master alarm is flashing, you don’t write a strongly worded letter. You don’t form a committee. You definitely don’t leave your post for a seven-week vacation. And you don’t make some ridiculous comment like what the President did, that we’ll have a, I think he said, a little gear that will fix everything.”

Senator Kelly’s recommendation:

“…Here’s what you do. You act. You step up, and you be the leader that the crew needs. You make smart decisions based on real data. I’m not saying this isn’t complicated. The United States has been and has to be at the forefront of technology as we have been for generations.

AI is important to our national security and it’s important to a thriving economy, and we need to find a path forward that protects Americans and our national interests. I’m also not saying we abandon innovation. AI could unlock benefits for the American people from curing diseases to solving big engineering problems that unlock new industries and new jobs.

But we can’t expect corporations to help us out of the goodness of their hearts. That’s why I’m introducing the Make AI Work for Americans Act to make sure workers aren’t left behind and that big tech pays their fair share. These companies are getting rich off of a technology trained on the wealth of humanity’s research, knowledge, and work.

Our ideas and discoveries. My bill would require them to give some of that wealth back to us by investing in the American worker through an AI horizon fund. The fund would use the money we make from holding the tech industries accountable and invest it in training workers, paid services to career opportunities, and support for those whose jobs just disappear.

It will ensure Americans are prepared and have a choice about what their future looks like and what it looks like in the next generation of the economy. We don’t have to choose between leading on innovation and protecting workers. We can do both.”

Senator Kelly reminded listeners that there is great concern among the American People about the impact AI would have on their lives and the need to regulate and safeguard it, offering:

“…The Americans we represent have different perspectives and positions, but they agree on this. 80% of Americans want us to step in and regulate AI. 80%. I hear it from Arizonans every day. They’re worried. They wake up wondering if today’s the day their job just gets automated away. Wondering if their kids are going to have careers in the future, or have a future at all. Americans across the spectrum want us to step in. Republicans, Democrats, Independents- all of them.

The tech industry itself, communities worried about data centers, families who just want to be able to sleep at night, all of those groups would like regulation. It seems that the only people who don’t want guardrails happen to be working in the White House. So what’s the holdup? A lot of folks seem to have forgotten what Congress is for.”

In his call to action at the end of his remarks, Senator Kelly held back no punches in his criticism of Trump and Johnson’s self serving greed and lack of leadership, stating:

“We weren’t elected to just raise money, or to trade stocks, or to rubber-stamp a President’s agenda. We were elected to make people’s lives better, and that’s what leaders do. If we act now on AI, we can avoid a catastrophe and shape a future with more opportunity, with more security, with more of the things we want and need. The alarms are sounding. The signals are clear. And nobody else is coming to the rescue. Mr. (Senate) President, it has to be us. So let’s be the leaders that this country elected. Let’s get this done now.”