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HR8306119th CongressWALLET

SCALE Act

Sponsored By: Representative Moolenaar, John R. [R-MI-2]

Introduced

Summary

A metrics-driven export control regime for AI hardware would create an annual, rolling system to limit exports to designated foreign adversaries and shape global AI supply chains in favor of the United States and its allies. The bill ties the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of National Intelligence to a repeatable process of setting performance metrics, production thresholds, and licensing rules to keep adversaries from matching U.S. AI compute capacity.

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  • U.S. exporters and hardware makers would face yearly thresholds, mandatory certifications, and due diligence rules. License applicants must meet third-party testing, end‑use limits, and restrictions on remote access or transfer of model weights when services are provided as infrastructure‑as‑a‑service.
  • Designated "countries of concern" such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba would be subject to controls designed to prevent indigenizing AI hardware production or accumulating capacity that approaches U.S. aggregate levels.
  • Commerce and intelligence officials would update metrics and export thresholds each year and coordinate with allies to apply controls consistently and prevent market backfill. The bill defines key terms and creates a process to add or modify metrics, with congressional notice and possible objections.

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

3 provisions identified: 0 benefits, 1 costs, 2 mixed.

New export limits and license rules

This bill would make the Commerce Secretary set yearly upper export limits for AI hardware within 365 days and at least annually after. For any item the limit could not exceed 110% of the performance of the most capable item that meets the indigenous production test. Licenses would be denied or presumptively denied if an approval would push an adversary's total above 5% of U.S. in-country hardware. Export applications reviewed on a non-presumption-of-denial basis would need certifications that exports will not delay U.S. orders, that exported processing performance is no more than 50% of U.S. shipped performance, that items are not for military or WMD use, that each shipment is checked by an independent U.S. testing lab, and that cloud consignees will not transfer undisclosed model weights or give prohibited parties remote access. The bill would also say nothing in it requires the Secretary to decontrol items or to approve licenses.

Annual AI hardware metrics and reports

This bill would require the Commerce Secretary and the Director of National Intelligence to publish objective performance metrics for AI hardware within 180 days. They would also send a classified annex to Congress with any non-public details. Not later than 90 days after each metric update, those officials would report to Congress quarterly estimates of AI hardware in each country of concern, showing imports versus indigenous production, remote access amounts, country-of-origin breakdowns, and how totals compare to U.S. in-country hardware.

Definitions for AI hardware and actors

This bill would define key terms used for the export rules. "Country of concern" would initially include China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and could expand by a published government list or Secretary of State designation. "Entity of concern" would cover entities organized or headquartered in those countries, entities with over 10% ultimate beneficial ownership tied to them, or entities acting for those governments. "Indigenous production" would mean AI hardware physically fabricated in the PRC and designed by an entity of concern. "AI hardware" would include items under ECCNs 3A090, 4A090, related ".z" suffix ECCNs, and other items the Secretary designates. "Remote access" would be access by a foreign person over a network when the Secretary finds it could pose a serious security or foreign policy risk.

Sponsors & CoSponsors

Sponsor

Moolenaar, John R. [R-MI-2]

MI • R

Cosponsors

There are no cosponsors for this bill.

Roll Call Votes

No roll call votes available for this bill.

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