White House Issues Executive Order on National AI Policy Framework and Preemption Of State AI Laws

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On December 11, 2025, the White House issued an executive order (“Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence”), calling for a single federal AI policy to ensure “national and economic security and dominance” and preempting state AI laws (with a few exceptions – see Section 8 below) to avoid “cumbersome regulation” that would “thwart” these “imperative[s]”. This executive order follows a series of previous AI-related executive orders, including:

1. Jan 23, 2025 - Executive Order ("EO") “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” revoking prior AI orders from the Biden admin as well as agency implementations thereof;
2. July 23, 2025 Executive Order releasing “America’s Action Plan” plus 3 other related EOs; and
3. Nov 23, 2025 Executive Order launching the “Genesis Mission” initiative, led by the Department of Energy, to accelerate AI-drive scientific discovery.

The dominant theme of this order is that it imposes a moratorium on state AI laws (something that was controversially proposed by Sen Cruz as part of budget bill in mid-2025, ending in a compromise limiting BEAD broadband funding eligibility, and was also proposed as part of the NDAA authorization bill).

Specifically, this order implements that theme in a number of ways worth noting. Below is a very high-level summary detailing the order’s content.

SECTION 1:

1.  US AI leadership to promote “national and economic security and dominance”.
2. US AI companies must be “free to innovate without cumbersome regulation”. Excessive state regulations “thwart this imperative” and require entities to “embed ideological bias within models.”
3. Executive branch must act with Congress for a minimally burdensome national standard – not 50 “discordant” state ones.
4. The National AI Framework (“NAIF”) should protect children, prevent censorship, respect copyrights, and safeguard communities.
5. Executive branch must take action to “check the most onerous and excessive laws emerging from the States”.

SECTION 2:

1.  It is US Policy to sustain and enhance “global AI dominance [of the United States] through a minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI.”

SECTION 3:

1.  Within 30 days, the US Attorney General shall create a Department of Justice AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws inconsistent with the “policy” laid out in Section 2 above.

SECTION 4:

1. Within 90 days, the Department of Commerce (DOC) (and the White House) to publish evaluation of existing state AI laws to identify those that are onerous and conflict with the Executive Order. This shall be done in consultation with various White House officials, including the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and the Assistant to the President and Counsel to the President.

SECTION 5:

1.  Within 90 days, DOC shall issue a Policy Notice specifying conditions under which "onerous" states may be ineligible for "non-deployment funds" under the BEAD broadband funding program.
2.  Executive agencies shall evaluate whether they can make discretionary grant programs in consultation with the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, and determine whether the agencies may condition such grants on states either: (a) not enacting “inconsistent” state AI laws; or (b) to the extent they have already been enacted, on states entering into a binding agreement with the agency not to enforce them during the funding program‘s performance period..

SECTION 6:

1.  Within 90 days of the DOC evaluation under Section 4, FCC Chairman Carr shall initiate a proceeding on whether to adopt a federal reporting and disclosure standard for AI models that preempt conflicting state laws.

SECTION 7:

1. Within 90 days, FTC Chairman Ferguson shall issue a policy statement on applying FTC Section 5 Act (unfair and deceptive practices) to AI models.

SECTION 8:

1. White House shall prepare legislative recommendations on establishing a uniform federal AI policy framework that preempts conflicting state AI laws. However, this shall NOT preempt otherwise lawful state laws related to:
   1. Child safety;
   2. Computer and data center infrastructure, other than generally applicable permitting reforms;
   3. State government AI procurement and use; and
   4. “other topics as shall be determined”.

While advocates of this executive order may support the policy goal of accelerating AI development and dominance and avoiding 50 “discordant” state regulatory frameworks, critics of the order raise federalism questions and the ability of the executive branch to issue such as moratorium over Congress, particularly given the high level ambiguity of the preemptive policy of “national and economic security and dominance.”

Maynard Nexsen continues to monitor these and subsequent executive orders as well as agency implementation thereof, as well as various state AI laws and regulations.  To the extent there any questions, please reach out to us to discuss.