On January 23, 2025, as one of the first actions of his second term, President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14179, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” making good on a campaign promise to rescind Executive Order 14110 (known colloquially as the Biden AI EO).
It is not surprising that AI was at the top of the agenda for President Trump’s second term. In his first term, Trump was the first president to issue an EO on AI. On February 11, 2019, he issued Executive Order 13859, Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. This was a first-of-its-kind EO to specifically address AI, recognizing the importance of AI to the economic and national security of the United States. In it, the Trump Administration laid the foundation for investment in the future of AI by committing federal funds to double investment in AI research, establishing national AI research institutes, and issuing regulatory guidance for AI development in the private sector. The first Trump Administration later established guidance for federal agency adoption of AI within the government.
The current EO gives the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, in coordination with agency heads they deem relevant, 180 days—until July 22, 2025—to prepare an AI Action Plan to replace the policies that have been rescinded from the Biden Administration.
OSTP/NSF RFI
To develop an AI Action Plan within that deadline, the National Science Foundation’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO)—on behalf of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)—has issued a Request for Information (RFI) on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan. Comments are due by March 15, 2025.
This is a unique opportunity to provide the second Trump Administration with important real-world, on-the-ground feedback. As the RFI states, this administration intends to use these comments to “define the priority policy actions needed to sustain and enhance America’s AI dominance, and to ensure that unnecessarily burdensome requirements do not hamper private sector AI innovation.
Epstein Becker Green and its Artificial Intelligence practice group, along with its health care, employment, and regulatory teams, are closely monitoring how the administration will address the regulation of health care AI and workplace AI in this plan. During President Trump’s first term, the administration focused its AI policy primarily around national security. Given the great expansion of the types and uses of AI tools since President Trump’s first term, we anticipate the Trump Administration will broaden its regulatory reach during this term—with the aim of “enhancing America’s global AI dominance.”
We have seen an explosion of AI tools adopted by our clients within health care—both clinical and administrative—as well as for employment decision-making. We work closely with clients to manage enterprise risk and drive strategic edge through AI innovation and look forward to helping shape the current administration’s AI policies through this and other opportunities for engagement with federal policymakers.
Submission Guidelines
OSTP seeks input on the highest priority policy actions that should be in the new AI Action Plan. Responses can address any relevant AI policy topic, including but not limited to: hardware and chips, data centers, energy consumption and efficiency, model development, open source development, application and use (either in the private sector or by government), explainability and assurance of AI model outputs, cybersecurity, data privacy and security throughout the lifecycle of AI system development and deployment (to include security against AI model attacks), risks, regulation and governance, technical and safety standards, national security and defense, research and development, education and workforce, innovation and competition, intellectual property, procurement, international collaboration, and export controls.
OSTP encourages respondents to suggest concrete AI policy actions needed to address the topics raised. Comments may be submitted by email to ostp-ai-rfi@nitrd.gov or by mail at the address on page 2 of the RFI. Email submissions should be machine-readable, not copy-protected, and include “AI Action Plan” in the subject heading. Additional guidelines, including font and page limits, appear on page 2.
If your organization would like assistance in submitting comments on the AI Action Plan, please reach out to your Epstein Becker Green attorney or the authors of this blog.
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