The Trump administration issued its recommended national policy framework for artificial intelligence on Friday, calling on Congress to turn the recommendations to legislation that will prioritize speed, scale and national coherence over localized regulation.
In an announcement accompanying the release of the framework, the administration committed to winning the AI race with other countries.
“Achieving these goals requires a commonsense national policy framework that both enables American industry to innovate and thrive and ensures that all Americans benefit from this technological revolution,” it said. “The Administration recognizes that some Americans feel uncertain about how this transformative technology will affect issues they care about, like their children’s wellbeing or their monthly electricity bill. These issues, along with other emerging AI policy considerations, require strong Federal leadership to ensure the public’s trust in how AI is developed and used in their daily lives.”
Priorities Under a Federally Led Framework
The framework identifies the below priorities and describes steps Congress can take to achieve each:
- Protecting children and empowering families: AI services and platforms must take measures to protect children, while empowering parents to control their children’s digital environment and upbringing.
- Safeguarding and strengthening American communities: AI development, including data infrastructure buildout, should strengthen American communities and small businesses through economic growth and energy dominance, while ensuring communities are protected from harmful impacts.
- Respecting intellectual property rights and supporting creators: American creators, publishers, and innovators should be protected from AI-generated outputs that infringe their protected content, without undermining lawful innovation and free expression.
- Preventing censorship and protecting free speech: The federal government must defend free speech and First Amendment protections, while preventing AI systems from being used to silence or censor lawful political expression or dissent.
- Enabling innovation and ensuring American AI dominance: The United States must lead the world in AI by removing barriers to innovation, accelerating deployment of AI applications across sectors, and ensuring broad access to the testing environments needed to build world-class AI systems.
- Educating Americans and Enabling an AI-ready workforce: American workers must benefit from AI-driven growth, not just the outputs of AI development, through youth development and skills training, the creation of new jobs in an AI-powered economy, and expanded opportunities across sectors.
- Establishing a federal policy framework and preempting cumbersome state AI laws: The federal government must establish a federal AI policy framework to protect American rights, support innovation, and prevent a fragmented patchwork of state regulations that would hinder our national competitiveness, while respecting federalism and state rights.
The Trump administration said the framework will only succeed if it is applied uniformly across the United States, avoiding a patchwork of state laws.
“The Federal government is uniquely positioned to set a consistent national policy that enables us to win the AI race and deliver its benefits to the American people, while effectively addressing the policy challenges that accompany this transformative technology.”
Advantages to a Federally Led AI Framework
By stressing an AI framework led at the federal level, it helps ensure greater regulatory certainty and reduces compliance burden. A single federal standard would replace the growing patchwork of state AI laws, lowering compliance costs and legal risk for companies operating nationally. This is particularly important for AI developers and data‑center operators whose activities are inherently interstate and global.
This also allows for faster innovation and infrastructure build‑out. By streamlining permitting for data centers, supporting on‑site power generation and avoiding new AI‑specific federal agencies, the framework is designed to accelerate deployment and help the United States remain competitive with more centralized foreign AI regimes.
The framework also promotes a unified national stance on speech, security and competitiveness. Federal leadership allows the United States to articulate a coherent AI policy aligned with constitutional free‑speech protections and national security priorities, supporting international trade, cross‑border data flows, and global AI governance efforts.
Drawbacks to a Federally Led AI Framework
This framework reduces state flexibility and policy experimentation. Broad preemption may limit states’ ability to address localized AI harms or serve as policy laboratories, particularly in areas like employment, housing and law enforcement, where impacts are felt unevenly.
It also produces the risk of under‑regulation. A “minimally burdensome” federal approach may struggle to keep pace with rapidly evolving AI risks, leaving gaps in transparency, accountability and liability until harms become widespread or courts resolve key disputes.
A federally led framework leads to political and legal uncertainty. Aggressive preemption — especially when tied to funding consequences — could face constitutional challenges and resistance from lawmakers concerned about states’ rights, potentially narrowing or delaying legislation.
Bottom Line
There are certainly pros and cons to state-led regulation. States can tailor AI rules to local risks and values, pilot targeted protections and respond quickly to emerging harms. But the cons are that divergent state laws increase compliance complexity, deter investment and result in inconsistent protections that may undermine public trust and U.S. leadership.
The federal framework reflects a strategic choice to prioritize speed, scale, and national coherence over localized regulation. Businesses may benefit from greater certainty and faster deployment, but should expect focused federal scrutiny in areas like child safety, fraud, energy use and national security. States and municipalities will face increasing pressure to align with a federal AI standard — or risk preemption and potential funding consequences.
Our Artificial Intelligence Industry Team is closely tracking this and related matters. If you have questions or concerns on the state and federal proposals, please contact attorney Timothy J. Plunkett at (914) 298-3004 and tplunkett@harrisbeachmurtha.com, or the Harris Beach Murtha attorney with whom you most frequently work.
This alert is not a substitute for advice of counsel on specific legal issues.
Harris Beach Murtha’s lawyers and consultants practice from offices throughout Connecticut in Bantam, Hartford, New Haven and Stamford; New York state in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Ithaca, New York City, Niagara Falls, Rochester, Saratoga Springs, Syracuse, Long Island and White Plains, as well as in Boston, Massachusetts, and Newark, New Jersey.