Anthropic Pitches Draft AI Safety Bill Setting $1 Billion Harm Threshold

Anthropic representatives have pitched Capitol Hill lawmakers on a confidential draft bill to regulate frontier AI safety and security, according to three people with knowledge of the efforts who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The draft, obtained by POLITICO and not previously reported, would let the government block a model's release or use only if it poses a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people, Yahoo reported on October 16, 2026.

What Anthropic's Draft Bill Would Do

The risk must stem from the creation or release of a biological weapon, the model evading its developer's controls or a cyberattack. The language mirrors that found in California's AI laws including SB 53, which was signed into law last year. Leading AI labs disclosed a series of incidents this summer in which AI agents hacked or probed websites and platforms, and none reported so far appear to have caused widespread deaths or over $1 billion in damages.

"This bill represents the proposals outlined in Anthropic's Advanced AI Framework, which we have been advocating for with federal and state lawmakers since June," an Anthropic spokesperson said. "These are sensible policies we believe Congress should act on."

Under the bill, independent evaluators, which would register with the Commerce Department, would periodically evaluate the lab and its frontier models. The evaluators may be paid for their work by the lab itself so long as the payment is not contingent on the evaluations' results. If the evaluators determine there is "imminent enumerated risk" for a company's frontier models, they must report it to Commerce within 72 hours of completing their assessment.

While the Commerce Department could bring a request to a judge to halt the release of a model after determining that it poses a risk, the language explicitly prohibits any other U.S. "department, agency, or officer" from suspending the model's development, deployment or internal use. A federal judge for the District Court for the District of Columbia could order the suspension of a model. The bill would also preempt some state AI laws related to public disclosure of risk, third-party evaluation and reporting of critical incidents, and would require frontier labs to create safety frameworks, publish transparency reports for new frontier models, implement protections for whistleblowers and report critical safety incidents to Commerce.

Anthropic's Funding and Revenue Records

Anthropic is a US public benefit corporation that develops and commercializes the Claude family of large language models, serving enterprises, developers, governments, and consumers, according to akta.pro company records. The same records show a $380 billion post-Series G valuation, a $50 billion Series H round in May 2026 led by Altimeter Capital, Capital Group and Coatue, and revenue that grew from a $14 billion run-rate in February 2026 to a $47 billion annualized run-rate by July 2026. Anthropic confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC in June 2026, placing it on a path to a potential public offering before year-end 2026.

Earlier Moves on AI Safety

In the House, Reps. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) and Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) spearheaded the FRONTIER Act, which would give the government the ability to stop the deployment of risky models and preempt some state AI laws. In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have been negotiating an AI safety bill intended to mitigate catastrophic risks, which has faced headwinds from some safety-minded groups and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on Cruz's Commerce Committee, who want the government to have a larger role in reviewing AI models. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have called for a pause in advanced AI development and a ban on superintelligence.

What Comes Next for the Draft

Anthropic has yet to publicly back particular legislative efforts in Congress, though it has backed some state AI safety laws, including two in California. Over the summer, Anthropic was subject to sweeping export controls that shut down two of its most advanced models.