Last Friday, March 20, 2026, the White House issued a four-page “National Policy Framework” for artificial intelligence (AI). This framework follows the Executive Order we discussed in December. It does not include proposed legislation but does recommend legislative priorities for Congress with respect to AI. This article summarizes the framework’s recommendations. The framework divides recommended legislative actions into seven categories:
- Protecting children and empowering parents
- Safeguarding and strengthening American communities
- Respecting intellectual property rights and supporting creators
- Preventing censorship and protecting free speech
- Enabling innovation and ensuring American AI dominance
- Educating Americans and developing an AI-ready workforce
- Establishing federal policy framework, preempting cumbersome state AI laws
Protecting children and empowering parents
The first section, relating to children, is the longest in the framework and includes seven recommendations, among them:
- Congress should empower parents and guardians with robust tools to manage their children’s privacy settings, screen time, content exposure and account controls.
- Congress should ensure that it does not preempt states from enforcing their own generally applicable laws protecting children, such as prohibitions on child sexual abuse material, even where such material is generated by AI.
- Congress should establish commercially reasonable, privacy-protective age-assurance requirements (such as parental attestation) for AI platforms and services likely to be accessed by minors.
The framework includes both affirmative legislative recommendations and guidance cautioning Congress against certain actions, such as setting ambiguous content standards or creating open-ended liability that could give rise to excessive litigation.
Safeguarding and strengthening American communities
The section on American communities contains five recommendations addressing energy costs, infrastructure permitting, fraud prevention, national security and small business support. Among them:
- Congress should streamline federal permitting for AI infrastructure construction and operation so AI developers can develop or procure on-site and behind-the-meter power generation to accelerate AI infrastructure buildout and enhance grid reliability.
- Congress should provide AI resources to small businesses, such as grants, tax incentives and technical assistance programs, to support wider deployment of AI tools across American industry.
Respecting intellectual property rights and supporting creators
With respect to intellectual property rights, the framework includes four recommendations. The first states that the administration believes “training AI models on copyrighted materials does not violate the copyright law” but is willing to let the courts decide, and cautions Congress not to “take any actions that would impact the judiciary’s resolution of whether training on copyrighted material constitutes fair use.” The framework also recommends that Congress consider a collective rights system to license rights without violating the antitrust laws.
The framework also recommends that Congress consider establishing a federal framework protecting individuals from the unauthorized distribution or commercial use of AI-generated digital replicas of their voice, likeness or other identifiable attributes, with exceptions for parody, satire, news reporting and other First Amendment-protected expression.
Preventing censorship and protecting free speech
The fourth section, relating to free speech, is the shortest in the framework, containing only two recommendations:
- Congress should prevent the United States government from coercing technology providers, including AI providers, to ban, compel or alter content based on partisan or ideological agendas.
- Congress should provide an effective means for Americans to seek redress from the federal government for agency efforts to censor expression on AI platforms or dictate the information provided by an AI platform.
Enabling innovation and ensuring American AI dominance
With respect to the fifth section, which focuses on continuing AI innovation, the framework includes three recommendations. Those recommendations focus on removing barriers to innovation and accelerating deployment of AI. Among the three recommendations, the framework includes recommendations that Congress establish regulatory sandboxes and permit federal datasets to be made available to industry and academia, and that Congress not create a federal rulemaking body to regulate AI but instead should support development and deployment through existing regulatory bodies.
Educating Americans and developing an AI-ready workforce
The sixth section addresses the effect of AI on American workers and includes three recommendations. The framework recommends that Congress use non-regulatory methods to ensure that existing education and workforce training programs, including apprenticeships, incorporate AI training. It also recommends that Congress bolster capabilities at land-grant institutions and that:
- Congress should expand Federal efforts to study trends in task-level workforce realignment driven by AI in order to inform policies supporting the American workforce.
Establishing federal policy framework, preempting cumbersome state AI laws
The final section addresses federal preemption of state AI laws. The framework recommends:
- Congress should preempt state AI laws that impose undue burdens to ensure a minimally burdensome national standard consistent with these recommendations, not fifty discordant ones.
The framework noted that it was specifically not recommending that Congress preempt traditional state police powers, such as laws to protect children, zoning laws or requirements governing a state’s own use of AI. However, it did recommend that “[p]reemption must ensure that State laws do not govern areas better suited to the Federal Government or act contrary to the United States’ national strategy to achieve global AI dominance.”
Conclusion and looking ahead
Nearly 400 bills relating to AI are currently pending in state legislatures. Some recommendations from this framework may find their way not only into federal legislation but also into that pending (and future) state legislation. We will continue to monitor these developments closely. For advice regarding this framework’s practical implications or for representation related to this framework or other state AI laws, please contact us.
