Broadband and AI in the Next Congress

An all-day event at the National Press Club
Tuesday, December 1, 2026

Mark your calendar for the National Press Club on Tuesday, December 1, 2026!

Artificial Intelligence is now driving infrastructure investment and public policy. AI's future will depend not only on breakthroughs in computing, but on the networks, data centers, energy systems, workforce, and institutions that support it. On Tuesday, December 1, 2026, Broadband Breakfast brings together lawmakers, regulators, industry leaders, and technology innovators at the National Press Club to examine the infrastructure behind intelligence, and the policies that will shape America's competitiveness in the AI era.

Panel 1: Permitting Reform and the AI Race

The Core Conflict: The federal government wants the U.S. to lead the global AI race, but telecom providers and hyperscalers face years of red tape trying to lay the fiber and build the facilities required to support it.

Key Topics:
- Advancing the American Broadband Deployment Act (H.R. 2289) to streamline local and federal permitting.
- Creative right-of-way solutions, such as telecom coalitions pushing to unlock railroad corridors for fiber lines using AI-driven safety as a legislative hook.
- Accelerating environmental review timelines under the National Environmental Policy Act for critical data center and telecom infrastructure.

Panel 2: The Data Center Power Crisis and Ratepayer Protection

The Core Conflict: AI data centers require unprecedented amounts of power, triggering intense congressional concern that tech expansions will drive up utility bills for everyday consumers or cause grid instability.

Key Topics:
- Legislative pushes like the Power and Water for Families Act (H.R. 9419), which aims to force large-load facilities to pay for their own grid upgrades.
- The efficacy of the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge signed by major hyperscalers.
- Grid modernization policy: How Congress can incentivize off-grid power solutions, nuclear integration from Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), and advanced cooling infrastructure.

Panel 3: Federal Preemption vs. State AI Patchworks

The Core Conflict: With Congress slower to pass comprehensive tech laws, states like California, Colorado, and Illinois have enacted aggressive AI regulations, creating a complex operational environment for multi-state telecom networks and platforms.

Key Topics:
The debate over federal preemption, whether Congress should step in with a single national framework to reduce compliance burdens.
How state-level algorithmic discrimination, data privacy, and workplace surveillance laws impact how telecom companies deploy AI in network management.
Finding a compromise between innovation protections and strict local consumer rights.