Trump Administration Issues Legislative Recommendations for a Federal Artificial Intelligence Framework
On March 20, 2026, the Trump Administration released A National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence: Legislative Recommendations (the “Framework”). In seven key policy areas, the Framework lays out legislative proposals to encourage innovation in artificial intelligence (“AI”), promote American AI dominance, and preempt certain state laws. The Framework follows from President Donald Trump’s December 11, 2025 Executive Order, Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, which directed the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology to prepare these recommendations. While Congress would ultimately have to enact these recommendations, they offer helpful insight into the direction of federal AI policy.
The Framework builds on a series of AI-focused actions by the second Trump Administration, including the January 2025 revocation of President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI, the June 2025 executive order amending and superseding the Biden executive order, the July 2025 AI Action Plan, and the November 2025 launch of the Genesis Mission.
Below, we describe the key legislative recommendations within each of the seven sections of the Framework.
Protecting Children and Empowering Parents: The Framework’s proposals seek to balance protecting children and providing tools to parents and guardians while minimizing compliance burdens. Notably, suggestions for establishing age-assurance requirements and protections against sexual exploitation and self-harm to minors are limited to “AI platforms and services likely to be accessed by minors.” The Framework also asks Congress to affirm additional children’s privacy protections, including limits on data collection for model training and targeted advertising, apply to AI. However, the Framework discourages Congress from setting “ambiguous standards about permissible content, or open-ended liability, that could give rise to excessive litigation,” or from preempting state laws protecting children.
Safeguarding and Strengthening American Communities: The Framework recommends a range of different proposals to protect consumers and promote AI development. For example, the Framework calls on Congress to enact the Trump Administration’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge to shield residential electricity rates from potential impacts from AI data center construction and operation, and to augment law enforcement efforts to combat AI-enabled scams and fraud that target vulnerable populations. The Framework also asks Congress to streamline federal permitting for AI infrastructure development and electricity-generation efforts, to enhance frontier AI capabilities in national security agencies, and to provide financial resources to small businesses to increase AI adoption.
Respecting Intellectual Property Rights and Supporting Creators: The Framework acknowledges intellectual property concerns posed by AI, while advocating for protection for AI developers and content creators and publishers. For example, the Framework urges Congress to defer to courts on whether training AI models using copyrighted material constitutes fair use, while declaring that “the Administration believes that training of AI models on copyrighted material does not violate copyright laws.” However, it also encourages Congress to explore potential compensation frameworks for rights holders without weighing in on the underlying merits, and to consider protections for AI-generated digital replicas, while also accounting for First Amendment protections.
Preventing Censorship and Protecting Free Speech: To address this objective, the Framework encourages Congress to prevent the US government from “coercing technology providers, including AI providers, to ban, compel, or alter content based on partisan or ideological agendas,” and to provide Americans a way to seek redress for impacts from any such federal efforts to censor or dictate information from AI platforms.
Enabling Innovation and Ensuring American AI Dominance: To achieve this objective, the Framework urges Congress to support AI development by establishing regulatory sandboxes for AI applications and providing resources to make AI-ready federal data sets available to industry and academia. It also discourages Congress from establishing any new federal regulatory body to oversee AI, rather than relying on existing regulatory authorities.
Educating Americans and Developing an AI-Ready Workforce: The Framework urges Congress to take “non-regulatory” approaches to include AI training in existing education and workforce training and support programs to expand federal efforts to study workforce realignment trends driven by AI in order to inform workforce policies, and to “bolster capabilities at land-grant institutions to provide technical assistance, launch demonstration projects, and develop AI youth development programs.”
Establishing a Federal Policy Framework, Preempting Cumbersome State AI Laws: In keeping with President Trump’s December 11, 2025 Executive Order, the Framework calls for federal AI policy to minimize burdens by preempting most state laws. The Framework specifically targets for preemption state laws that contradict the Trump Administration’s national strategy to achieve global AI dominance, regulate AI development, restrict Americans’ ability to use AI for activities that would be legal without AI, or penalize AI developers for a third party’s unlawful conduct involving their models. The Framework discourages Congress from preempting state laws related to “traditional police powers retained by the states to enforce laws of general applicability against AI developers and users, including particular laws to protect children, prevent fraud, and protect consumers,” state zoning laws relating to AI infrastructure, or state laws governing a state’s own procurement or use of AI.
Conclusion
The Trump Administration has now presented specific policy proposals for federal regulation of AI. The onus is now on Congress to decide whether and how to translate the Framework’s proposals into federal legislation, and the degree to which to preempt the growing patchwork of state AI laws. Companies should continue to monitor key developments as the Trump Administration continues to implement its AI strategy, and Congress evaluates how to translate these policy proposals into legislation.
