MYSTIC ALERTS ACT

On 2026-09-30, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) delivered a floor speech titled "MYSTIC ALERTS ACT" in the Senate.

MYSTIC ALERTS ACT

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 155 (Wednesday, September 30, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 155 (Wednesday, September 30, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S5237-S5238] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] MYSTIC ALERTS ACT Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, on July 4, 2025, Central Texas experienced a once-in-a-century flooding event that caused the waters of the Guadalupe River to rise a shocking 26 feet in just 45 minutes. Homes were washed away, trees were toppled, streets were swallowed up, and communities in central Texas were ravaged, bringing an entire State to our knees. The raging and merciless waters took the lives of 139 people, including 27 young girls who went to Camp Mystic in Kerr County. On that day, Heaven gained too many angels. Even more shattering to think about is the reality that lives could have been saved if we had only had sufficient systems in place to deliver wireless emergency alerts to individuals in the danger zone after electricity and cell service were knocked out by the storm. That is why I introduced the Mystic Alerts Act along with Congressman August Pfluger to ensure Texans and all Americans can receive wireless emergency alerts on their mobile devices via satellite even when cellular networks are compromised. This legislation, which passed the House unanimously earlier this year, would help shore up this vulnerability and would undoubtedly save lives. When disaster strikes, every second matters. Access to timely weather alerts would have given more Texans the runway needed to find higher ground before it was too late. We couldn't save these 139 lives more than a year ago, but we will never be able to make things right for the families that continue to grieve unless we take a chance to honor the memories of those who lost their lives and their families and to prevent the horrors from hopefully ever happening again. I urge my colleagues to allow this bill to advance to the President's desk tonight. Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 7022 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. [[Page S5238]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title. The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows: A bill (H.R. 7022) to provide for the transmission of emergency alerts by satellite, and for other purposes. There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the Senate proceeded to consider the bill. Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The bill (H.R. 7022) was ordered to a third reading, was read the third time, and passed. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). The Senator from Delaware. Artificial Intelligence Mr. COONS. Mr. President, we are about to go back to our States, to recess sometime tonight or tomorrow, and then to proceed to the general election. And there is an issue that hangs over the American people that concerns me, and I am sure concerns all of my colleagues, but on which we likely won't act before we adjourn. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and I are the cosponsors of the AI Whistleblower Protection Act, and it is one of a dozen urgently needed and important bills that would inject some guardrails, protections, and accountability into the rapidly advancing technology of AI. Why is this a concern for me? Because in recent days, in recent weeks, there have been alarming incidents of AI agents breaking out of their containment sandboxes, taking on actions that even their designers and developers couldn't predict and can't fully explain. And in recent days, the titans of the AI industry--folks like Sam Altman from Open AI or Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind or Dario Amodei from Anthropic--have been saying AI is improving itself so fast that we are at risk of it exceeding the capabilities of humans to control it--frankly, even to understand it. So for those of you watching who might want to get tuned in to the debate and to the discussion, to be better informed, to be better engaged, I want to recommend a movie I just saw. It has got an unusual title. It is called ``The AI Doc: Or how I Became an Apocaloptimist.'' And the director, Daniel Roher, is a documentary maker who is facing being a parent for the first time, and he is trying to get his head around alternating depictions, predictions of doom, literally the extinction of the human race, or a utopia where AI will unlock the secrets to cheap, abundant, clean fusion energy or solve all the diseases, cancer, and other ravages known to mankind. And in the course of an hour and a half, this very capable documentarian interviews dozens of the leading commentators, technology leaders, business leaders, civil society leaders, and researchers. The first 20 minutes of the movie was so depressing I had to turn it off. It was so clearly predicting and making a compelling case for the imminent end of the human species at the hands of artificial intelligence that it became overwhelming. The next 30 minutes does the opposite. It gives you the most optimistic view possible: apocalypse or optimism. And we here in the Senate and in the executive branch and in the House have a responsibility to reasonably, responsibly regulate in a timely way. There are so many dangerous technologies developed in the last century where we put guardrails around them, whether it was jet airplanes or nuclear energy, automobiles or the banking system. I was in a terrible car accident end of June. I am here today because of airbags and seatbelts. Those were first advocated by safety folks like Ralph Nader. The Big Three auto companies mostly resisted. Why do we need seatbelts? When airbags came out, why the extra cost? I was in a five-car accident where all five vehicles were totaled and every passenger walked away. And as I walked away, as I walked out of the hospital, I said to a friend: Thank God. What a miracle. And he turned to me and said: And thanks for the seatbelts and the airbags. When you get on an airplane and fly across the country, none of us probably can explain exactly how it works, exactly what the technology is. But we know that it has been maintained. It has been designed, maintained, funded, and flown by a tightly regulated group of people. Airline pilots operate under very strict standards. Those who maintain and operate airplanes operate under very strict standards. That is why we don't have tragic disasters all the time. So there are some good, concrete, bipartisan ideas for how we can inject some responsibility: some third-party auditing; some traceable records of what is happening, what has been done; some predeployment testing. Earlier this week, I introduced my bipartisan AI Systems Transparency Act with Senators Lankford and Britt and Schatz; four Senators--two Republicans, two Democrats, from very different backgrounds-- introducing a bill to require transparency about what is driving these AI models so we can better study them, test them, and understand them. There are lots of other good ideas that other Members have, but we, unfortunately, have a President who has said that the risks of AI are a hoax and, while hosting the titans of the AI industry, has refused to take seriously the idea that we in any way should meaningfully regulate this industry. I understand we are in a dire competition with China. I agree with the assertion that the society or country that wins the race to frontier AI will have a decided advantage in national security, in science, in industry, in business of all kinds. But we can and should do both: compete against China, invest in frontier models, and have responsible safety to prevent the worst scenarios from coming true. We are able to do this in banking, to give one other example. Delaware, where I am from, is a major banking center. Every one of the largest banks in America has major operations in Delaware, and they operate under some real restrictions. There are OCC and FDIC inspectors, regulators in every bank. They are required to follow know-your-customer laws, anti-money laundering standards. And after the 2008 to 2009 crisis, no one from the banking industry comes to me and says: We need a lighter touch regulation. They understand that safety and soundness--the rule of law--allows the United States to have deep capital markets and safety. Artificial intelligence is transforming our world, and whether it is adopting the AI whistleblower app that Senator Grassley and I are advocating for or it is adopting the AI Systems Transparency Act that Senator Britt and I and other colleagues are advocating for or other bipartisan bills, when we return in what will likely be a period of greater anxiety about AI, we need to act. We need to take up legislation and move forward reasonable and responsible regulation. ____________________

Referenced legislation: HR7022, HR7022