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On March 20, 2026, the White House released its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence. This Framework contains a sweeping set of legislative recommendations intended to establish a coherent, nationally unified approach to AI governance. While the Framework does not itself create binding legal obligations, it is likely to shape federal AI legislation in the months and years ahead. This post summarizes the Framework’s key areas of focus and considers what its influence could mean for the current state regulatory landscape.
- Protecting Children and Empowering Parents
The Framework recommends that Congress establish privacy protections and age-verification requirements for AI services likely to be accessed by children, including providing parents with tools to manage their children’s privacy settings, screen time, and content exposure. The Framework also urges Congress to require AI platforms to implement features that reduce the risks of sexual exploitation and self-harm to minors and to continue enforcing prohibitions on nonconsensual disclosures of intimate depictions. Notably, the Framework recommends that any federal legislation should not preempt states from enforcing their own generally applicable laws protecting children, such as prohibitions on child sexual abuse material. It also contemplates strengthening existing state-level restrictions on the use of children’s data for training AI models and targeted advertising.
- Safeguarding and Strengthening American Communities
The Framework’s second goal focuses on enabling continued growth of AI infrastructure while protecting communities from associated harms. It recommends streamlining federal permitting for the construction and operation of AI facilities and supports AI developers’ ability to develop on-site power generation, while protecting residential ratepayers from increased energy costs related to AI data centers, providing AI resources to small businesses, and augmenting law enforcement tools to combat AI-enabled impersonation scams and fraud.
- Respecting Intellectual Property Rights and Supporting Creators
The Framework recommends that Congress provide protections for individuals affected by the unauthorized distribution or commercial use of AI-generated digital replicas of their voice, likeness, or other identifiable attributes, while exempting parody, satire, news reporting, and other expressive works protected by the First Amendment. The Framework also recommends that Congress consider enabling collective licensing frameworks that would allow rights holders to negotiate compensation from AI providers.
- Preventing Censorship and Protecting Free Speech
The Framework recommends that Congress take action to prevent the federal government from coercing AI providers to suppress or alter content based on partisan or ideological agendas and establish mechanisms for seeking redress where federal agencies attempt to censor expression on AI platforms.
- Enabling Innovation and Ensuring American AI Dominance
The Administration recommends establishing regulatory sandboxes to support AI development and deployment, including making federal datasets accessible in AI-ready formats for use in model training. Significantly, the Framework expressly recommends against creating any new federal rulemaking body to regulate AI, calling instead for AI to be governed through existing regulatory agencies with subject-matter expertise and industry-led standards.
- Educating Americans and Developing an AI-Ready Workforce
The Framework recommends that Congress incorporate AI training into existing education and workforce development programs, expand federal efforts to study trends in AI, and bolster capabilities at land-grant institutions to provide technical assistance, launch demonstration projects, and develop youth-centered AI programs.
- Establishing a Federal Policy Framework and Preempting State AI Laws
The Framework’s most consequential section for the current regulatory landscape is its recommendation for federal preemption of state AI laws. The Administration recommends that Congress preempt state AI laws that “impose undue burdens,” with the stated goal of establishing a single, minimally burdensome national standard rather than fifty discordant ones.
The Framework does, however, carve out several categories of state law from preemption. States would retain their powers to enforce generally applicable laws against AI developers and users, exercise zoning authority, and regulate states’ own uses of AI for law enforcement or other public services. Outside of these limited carve-outs, the Framework recommends that states not be permitted to regulate AI development, penalize AI developers for third-party unlawful conduct involving their models, or burden the use of AI for activities that would be lawful if performed without AI.
Several states have already taken action to regulate AI development and deployment. Examples include Colorado’s AI Act, which is set to take effect later in 2026, and California’s amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act regulating automated decision-making technologies. The Framework’s interaction with these laws will depend heavily on how Congress translates the Administration’s recommendations into legislation and how broadly any preemption provision is drawn. If broad preemption language is adopted to prohibit state regulation of “AI development,” these and similar statutes could be rendered unenforceable.
Though the Framework provides insight into the Administration’s priorities and indicates a clear direction for future AI legislation, businesses should continue to closely monitor both state and federal legislative developments moving forward.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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