The White House released a major policy report yesterday outlining a sweeping set of legislative recommendations designed to position the United States at the forefront of artificial intelligence while safeguarding citizens’ rights and community welfare. The document, titled National Policy Framework: Artificial Intelligence Legislative Recommendations, emphasizes protecting children, fostering innovation, strengthening communities, and creating a nationally coordinated approach to AI development.
At the heart of the recommendations is a focus on children’s safety in the digital world. The report calls on Congress to “build on actions to date by the Trump Administration to protect children, including the historic signing of the Take It Down Act, a key initiative of First Lady Melania Trump to protect children and adult victims from deepfake abuse.” The White House recommends that AI services and platforms adopt measures to empower parents with robust tools to manage their children’s privacy settings, screen time, content exposure, and account controls. In addition, AI platforms likely to be accessed by minors should “implement features that reduce the risks of sexual exploitation and self-harm to minors,” and ensure compliance with existing child privacy protections, including limits on data collection for model training and targeted advertising.
The report emphasizes clarity in regulatory standards, warning against ambiguous content rules that could generate excessive litigation. “Congress should avoid setting ambiguous standards about permissible content, or open-ended liability, that could give rise to excessive litigation,” the document states. Simultaneously, it insists that states retain their authority to enforce child protection laws, including prohibitions on AI-generated sexual abuse material.
Beyond child safety, the White House recommendations address the economic and energy implications of AI infrastructure. Congress is urged to ensure that “residential ratepayers do not experience increased electricity costs as a result of new AI data center construction and operation,” while also streamlining federal permitting to allow developers to implement on-site power generation and strengthen grid reliability. The report highlights efforts to combat AI-enabled fraud targeting seniors and calls for enhancing national security capacity to understand frontier AI models and mitigate potential threats.
Supporting small businesses and American communities is also central to the framework. The report suggests that Congress provide grants, tax incentives, and technical assistance programs to facilitate broader deployment of AI tools across industry. “Congress should provide AI resources to small businesses…to support wider deployment of AI tools across American industry,” the recommendations state.
Intellectual property protections and the rights of creators are another major focus. The White House stresses that “American creators, publishers, and innovators should be protected from AI-generated outputs that infringe their protected content, without undermining lawful innovation and free expression.” While the administration maintains that AI training on copyrighted material does not violate copyright laws, it acknowledges “arguments to the contrary exist and therefore supports allowing the Courts to resolve this issue.” The recommendations also propose federal frameworks to protect individuals from the unauthorized commercial use of AI-generated digital replicas of their voice, likeness, or other attributes, while preserving exceptions for parody, satire, news reporting, and other First Amendment-protected expression.
The report underscores the need to defend free speech. It explicitly warns against government coercion of technology providers to restrict content, stating, “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.” It also recommends that citizens have recourse to challenge federal agency efforts to influence AI platforms.
In terms of innovation, the White House calls for the removal of barriers to AI development and deployment, recommending regulatory sandboxes, accessible federal datasets in AI-ready formats, and support for sector-specific standards rather than creating a new federal AI regulatory body. “Congress should not create any new federal rulemaking body to regulate AI, and should instead support development and deployment of sector-specific AI applications through existing regulatory bodies with subject matter expertise and through industry-led standards,” the report explains.
Education and workforce development are highlighted as critical areas. The report urges Congress to ensure that existing education and workforce programs, including apprenticeships, incorporate AI training. It also calls for expanded studies on workforce realignment due to AI, bolstering capabilities at land-grant institutions to provide technical assistance, and developing youth AI programs. “Congress should bolster capabilities at land-grant institutions to provide technical assistance, launch demonstration projects, and develop AI youth development programs,” the recommendations state.
A key theme throughout the report is the creation of a unified federal framework to prevent a fragmented patchwork of state AI regulations. The White House advises that Congress preempt state AI laws that “impose undue burdens” while preserving states’ authority to enforce general laws protecting children, preventing fraud, and managing zoning for AI infrastructure. The report stresses that preemption should ensure “states do not govern areas better suited to the Federal Government or act contrary to the United States’ national strategy to achieve global AI dominance,” adding that states should not regulate AI development directly or penalize developers for third-party misuse of AI.
Overall, the White House document paints a vision of AI as a transformative force for economic growth, national security, and American global leadership, while emphasizing the ethical and social responsibilities that accompany its deployment. By combining child protection measures, creator rights, free speech safeguards, infrastructure planning, and workforce development, the report seeks to chart a national strategy that balances innovation with public welfare.
The report’s release yesterday marks a significant moment in U.S. AI policy, setting the stage for potential Congressional action that could shape the development, deployment, and regulation of artificial intelligence for years to come. Its recommendations suggest a future where AI growth is tightly coordinated at the federal level, with explicit attention to safety, fairness, and American competitiveness.
