Key facts
- The FRONTIER Act (H.R. 9925) aims to create a federal AI safety standard.
- The bill targets large AI developers with over $50 million in revenue and $1 billion in AI development spending over 36 months.
- Developers must publish safety frameworks, conduct annual audits, and report critical incidents.
- Very large developers must retain licensed independent verification organizations for external assessment.
- Civil penalties for violations can reach up to $10 million per day.
- A new Under Secretary for AI Security position would be created within the Department of Commerce.
A bipartisan pair of U.S. lawmakers, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA), have garnered support from OpenAI for their proposed legislation aimed at establishing federal oversight for advanced artificial intelligence models. The FRONTIER Act, introduced on July 23, 2026, seeks to replace a fragmented landscape of state-level regulations with a unified federal standard for the most powerful AI systems.
OpenAI publicly endorsed key aspects of the bill on September 15, 2026, specifically its requirement for independent verification organizations to assess AI safety. The legislation defines "frontier models" as AI systems requiring more than 10^26 compute operations for training. Developers exceeding $50 million in revenue and $1 billion in AI development spending over a 36-month period would be subject to its provisions.
Under the FRONTIER Act, these developers would be mandated to publish safety frameworks, undergo annual audits, and report significant incidents to federal authorities. The largest developers would face additional scrutiny through ongoing external assessments by licensed independent verification organizations. Violations could result in civil penalties of up to $10 million per day. The bill also proposes the creation of an Under Secretary for AI Security within the Department of Commerce to oversee compliance and incident tracking, with the Commerce Secretary empowered to suspend AI deployments in cases of imminent catastrophic risk.
The bill incorporates industry feedback, including exemptions for state authority on deployment-specific matters and child safety, acknowledging existing state regulatory efforts. As of mid-September 2026, the FRONTIER Act had not yet advanced to hearings or markups in Congress.