Oregon lawmakers weighing Lake Oswego representative’s AI, electric scooter bills

Bills proposed by Rep. Daniel Nguyen, D-Lake Oswego, have begun to matriculate through the Oregon legislative process.

Each legislator can propose two bills during the session. Nguyen introduced one that would create a 14-member task force to determine common language around artificial intelligence that would inform future lawmaking and another that would create a task force on electric micro-mobility (like electric bicycles and scooters).

The AI bill received a hearing in front of the Joint Committee on Information Management and Technology and that committee recommended the bill’s passage with amendments before sending it to the Ways and Means Committee.

The fiscal impact of the bill was estimated by the legislative office to be $227,521, sourced from the state government’s existing General Fund resources. The bill declares an emergency and so would be effective upon passage; the task force would sunset Jan. 1, 2025.

Nguyen’s legislation calls for input from a broad range of stakeholders such as “institutions of higher education, consumer advocacy groups and small, medium and large businesses affected by artificial intelligence policies” and task force members would need to have expertise in two of the following: computer science, artificial intelligence, technology industries, workforce development and data privacy.

“A task force allows for a collaborative conversation with policy makers and industry leaders, researchers and other stakeholders,” Nguyen said in a press release sent earlier this month. “As we stand at the precipice of this technological revolution, we need to position our state as a leader in responsible AI governance.”

Meanwhile, the electric micro-mobility bill had a public hearing at the Joint Committee on Transportation Thursday evening, Feb. 15. If approved as originally written, some of the goals of that task force would be to assess current laws related to e-bikes and e-scooters, whether safety and education requirements should be instituted, best practices for using them, how they can promote equity, safety and climate goals, and more.

“The idea for HB 4067 came from the City of Lake Oswego as they work to increase safety between cars, pedestrians, bikes and e-micromobility users,” Nguyen’s press release reads.

The short session is just over one month long, meaning the Legislature works quickly to assess and then enact or discard bills. According to the Legislature calendar, bills that don’t move out of committee by Feb. 19 will die (except bills from a few committees like Ways & Means, Revenue, Rules and some joint committees).