What looks like AI regulation is, structurally, an argument about institutional durability. Executive-created bodies — the NIST AI Safety Institute, the National AI Research Resource — exist at the pleasure of whoever occupies the White House. The bills moving through Congress this spring convert that conditional existence into statutory permanence, a move that matters far more to the research and compliance communities than any specific rule the bills contain. The and the Lieu-Obernolte package are not expanding what these institutions do — they are making it harder…