Attorneys General from fourteen states—California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont—and the District of Columbia urged Congress to amend the proposed American Privacy Rights Act to remove its planned preemptive effect.

While the states' interests in more stringent protections created by local laws was one basis for their objection to the APRA, they also focused on the need to be able to move quickly to adapt privacy legislation to new and rapidly developing technologies. On the other side of the argument are companies that have to address the maze of numerous, and sometimes conflicting, state laws.

Similar objections by the states helped doom a previous federal privacy bill in 2022. Whether support for federal privacy legislation has materially changed is not clear. It seems difficult for Congress to agree on any legislation, but perhaps this bill is politically safe enough to garner broader support.

"We encourage Congress to adopt legislation that sets a federal floor, not a ceiling, for critical privacy rights and respects the important work already undertaken by states to provide strong privacy protections for our residents," the attorneys general said.

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