The Federal Posture: Executive Orders, OMB, and the Preemption Fight

How US federal AI policy actually works when Congress won’t legislate: the whiplash from EO 14110 to EO 14179, America’s AI Action Plan and its companion orders, the OMB memos that run agency AI, the escalating war over state-law preemption, and how to plan compliance inside a policy regime that can reverse itself in a single afternoon.

Content current as of 2026-09.

Lessons

  1. The 2025 pivot: two orders, two philosophies
  2. America’s AI Action Plan and the July 2025 orders
  3. OMB memos: how the federal government governs its own AI
  4. The preemption fight: Washington vs the states
  5. EO 14409, the stalemate, and what compliance teams actually do