U.S. Chamber of Commerce Raises Concerns Over California Civil Rights Council's AI Regulation Proposal

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (“Chamber”) appreciates the opportunity to provide further feedback on the California Civil Rights Council's (“CCRC” or “Council”) Second Modifications to the Initial Text of Proposed Modifications to Employment Regulations Regarding Automated-Decision Systems (“Proposal”). The Chamber continues to have strong concerns with the Council's insufficient process to adopt the Proposal. Specifically, the Council has only provided fifteen days for stakeholders to review the proposed modifications and assess the impact of such changes before the Council's meeting. Accordingly, the business community is unable to provide informed feedback on the modifications to the Proposal.

The Chamber continues to be concerned with the direction of the proposed regulations, as the recent changes do not address the concerns and questions that the Chamber highlighted in our July 18, 2024 comments4 to the original proposal. We respectfully request that the Council consider our July 18, 2024 comment letter to be incorporated in this letter as a part of the record. We wish to highlight the following deficiencies in the Council’s rulemaking approach:

• Lacking clarity on its legal authority to expand the scope of regulations without

expressed legislative authorization to do so;

• Failing to conduct the necessary fiscal and economic analysis around the proposed

modifications before further promulgation activity and

• Ignoring stakeholder concerns regarding the possible exponential increase in litigation towards vendors and developers of automated tools.

The Chamber urges the Council to delay taking further action on the Proposal until these concerns are addressed.

About the authors

Michael Richards

Michael Richards is the senior director of policy at the Chamber's Center for Technology Engagement.

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