America’s AI Action Plan and the July 2025 orders

Lesson 2 of 5 in The Federal Posture: Executive Orders, OMB, and the Preemption Fight.

EO 14179 gave the administration 180 days to produce a plan. On 23 July 2025 it arrived: America’s AI Action Plan, roughly 90 policy actions organized under three pillars — and, released the same day, three companion executive orders that turned several of those actions into immediate directives.

The plan is not law. But it is the best single map of where federal agencies are being pushed, and several of its actions reached directly into documents this curriculum teaches — most notably the order that NIST revise the AI Risk Management Framework to strip references to misinformation, diversity-equity-inclusion, and climate change.

Pillar I — Accelerate AI innovation

Deregulation as policy: agencies told to identify and remove rules that burden AI development, and federal funding decisions to weigh a state’s regulatory climate. Open-weight models get explicit support as a strategic asset. Procurement of ‘unbiased’ LLMs becomes federal policy (operationalized by EO 14319). Worker-focused actions — retraining, AI literacy — sit here too. And the pillar carries the NIST directive: revise the AI RMF, removing misinformation, DEI, and climate references.

Pillar II — Build American AI infrastructure

Compute as industrial policy: accelerated federal permitting for data centers and the energy projects behind them (its own EO the same day), semiconductor manufacturing support, and workforce build-out for electricians and HVAC trades. The wager: whoever owns the compute owns the decade.

Pillar III — Lead international AI diplomacy and security

Export the ‘full American AI stack’ — chips, models, standards — to allies (its own EO the same day), tighten export controls on adversaries, and push US positions in international standards bodies. CAISI’s post-plan mission — security evaluation and standards leadership — lives in this pillar.

Same-day EO 14319 — ‘Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government’

Sets two ‘Unbiased AI Principles’ for federal LLM procurement: truth-seeking and ideological neutrality. Note the legal mechanics: it does not regulate what companies may build — it conditions what the government will buy. Procurement leverage is the federal government’s favorite substitute for regulation, and vendors feel it as de facto product requirements.

The federal policy stream

  • 2019-02-11 — EO 13859 — American AI Initiative:

    The first US executive order on AI: R&D investment and NIST tasked with technical standards — the seed of the AI RMF.

  • 2022-10-04 — White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights:

    Five principles for automated systems — non-binding, but the clearest US federal statement of the rights-based framing.

  • 2022-10-07 — US advanced-chip export controls on China:

    Sweeping controls on advanced semiconductors and manufacturing equipment — compute becomes an explicit instrument of AI policy.

  • 2023-01-26 — NIST AI RMF 1.0 released:

    Govern, Map, Measure, Manage — the voluntary framework that becomes the de facto grammar of US AI risk management and a safe-harbor hook in state laws.

  • 2023-10-17 — US tightens chip export controls:

    The 2022 rules are extended to close performance-density loopholes and cover more countries — the compute-control net widens.

  • 2025-01-13 — AI Diffusion Rule issued — then rescinded:

    A three-tier global framework for AI chip and model-weight exports, issued in the administration’s final week and rescinded by its successor in May 2025 — export policy whiplash.

  • 2023-07-21 — White House voluntary AI commitments:

    Seven frontier labs commit to red-teaming, watermarking research, and security — the voluntary-first US pattern in one document.

  • 2023-10-30 — EO 14110 on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI:

    The most sweeping US federal AI action to date: compute-threshold reporting, agency mandates, NIST tasked with GenAI guidance. Revoked fifteen months later.

  • 2025-01-20 — EO 14110 revoked (EO 14148):

    The incoming administration revokes the 2023 AI order on day one — the sharpest one-day regime flip in AI policy history.

  • 2025-01-23 — EO 14179 — Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI:

    The new posture: dominance through deregulation. Agencies ordered to review and unwind “burdensome” AI requirements.

  • 2025-07-01 — Senate strips the state-AI-law moratorium, 99–1:

    A proposed 10-year federal preemption of state AI laws dies in the Senate — states keep the pen, and keep writing.

  • 2025-07-23 — America’s AI Action Plan:

    90+ federal actions: exports, permitting, “ideological neutrality” in procurement — the deregulatory posture becomes a program.

  • 2025-12-01 — EO 14365 pushes a national AI framework:

    The administration moves toward federal preemption of the state patchwork — litigation and legislation follow. Check current status.

  • 2026-06-01 — EO 14409 on frontier-model cybersecurity:

    Federal attention narrows to security of frontier models — weights, infrastructure, adversarial threats. Check current status for implementing rules.

Interactive checkpoint quiz (2 questions) — open this page in a browser to take it.