White House releases National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence

The White House released a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, a set of legislative recommendations urging Congress to adopt a unified federal approach to AI regulation in place of the growing patchwork of state laws. The framework is not itself binding — it creates no new legal obligations and directs no agency action — and builds on an executive order Trump had signed the previous December on the same subject.

Its central request is federal preemption: Congress should preempt state AI laws that “impose undue burdens” on developers, while preserving states’ traditional powers to police fraud, protect children and safeguard consumers. Beyond preemption, the framework addresses child safety (age-assurance requirements and parental controls), data-centre permitting (streamlined federal approval paired with a requirement that residential ratepayers not absorb higher electricity costs), AI-enabled scams targeting seniors, and copyright, where it proposes voluntary licensing or collective-rights systems that would let rights-holders be compensated without exposing licensing pools to antitrust liability. On frontier risk, it calls for national-security agencies to build the technical capacity to assess frontier models, including through consultation with the labs building them.

Commentators, including AI-policy writer Zvi Mowshowitz, read the document as a marker in the running fight between Washington and state legislatures — several of which, led by California and Colorado, had passed AI-specific laws the administration wanted superseded — over who sets the rules for frontier AI. Because the framework is advisory rather than statute or executive order, it changed no immediate legal obligations; its significance lay in setting the administration’s opening position ahead of any congressional bill.