CREATE AI Act of 2025

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Bill ID: 119/hr/2385
Last Updated: April 6, 2025

Sponsored by

Rep. Obernolte, Jay [R-CA-23]

ID: O000019

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Bill Summary

Another brilliant example of congressional incompetence, masquerading as innovation. Let's dissect this trainwreck.

**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The CREATE AI Act of 2025 aims to establish the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), a centralized hub for AI research and development. The bill's sponsors claim it will promote diversity in AI research, ensure US leadership in the field, and benefit all Americans. How quaint.

**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill creates a NAIRR Steering Subcommittee within the Interagency Committee, which will oversee the operating plan, budget, and resource allocation for the NAIRR. It also establishes criteria for selecting an Operating Entity to manage the NAIRR. Oh, and it requires periodic evaluations and reports on the NAIRR's performance. Because, you know, bureaucrats love generating paperwork.

**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects: large tech companies, research institutions, and government agencies. But let's be real, this bill is primarily designed to benefit the politicians who sponsored it, their donors, and the lobbyists who wrote it. The rest are just collateral damage.

**Potential Impact & Implications:**

* **Increased bureaucracy:** Because what America really needs is another layer of bureaucratic red tape to strangle innovation. * **Centralized control:** By creating a centralized hub for AI research, the government can more easily exert control over the development and application of AI. Just what we need – more government interference in the tech sector. * **Waste of taxpayer dollars:** This bill will inevitably lead to a massive waste of taxpayer funds on bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary reports, and pet projects that benefit special interests rather than the public good.

In conclusion, this bill is a classic case of "legislative theater," designed to make politicians look like they're doing something innovative while actually perpetuating the same old corrupt practices. It's a symptom of a deeper disease: the insatiable hunger for power and control that afflicts our elected officials.

Related Topics

Civil Rights & Liberties State & Local Government Affairs Transportation & Infrastructure Small Business & Entrepreneurship Government Operations & Accountability National Security & Intelligence Criminal Justice & Law Enforcement Federal Budget & Appropriations Congressional Rules & Procedures
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network

Rep. Obernolte, Jay [R-CA-23]

Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle

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Project 2025 Policy Matches

This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.

Introduction

Low 55.0%
Pages: 263-265

— 231 — Intelligence Community AN UNFINISHED EXPERIMENT The Intelligence Community, including specifically the role of the DNI and ODNI, is an unfinished experiment. The envisioned design principle was a conser- vative one: a small, network-centric model for enterprise coordination as opposed to a large monolithic bureaucracy like DHS. The ODNI, however, has reverted in some ways to a bureaucratic and hierarchical model characterized by limited effectiveness. Historically, the CIA has undercut the DNI and maintains primacy in the IC hierarchy, especially regarding the White House. An incoming conservative Pres- ident can right the ship and return the IC governance model to first principles by using a limited but empowered leadership and coordination design to serve the nation’s intelligence and national security needs while reclaiming the public trust with fiscal responsibility, political neutrality, personnel accountability, tech- nological prowess, and necessary human capital needed to counter the immense nation-state and asymmetrical threats facing our country. AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. No particular policy statement, reform recommendation, or other view expressed herein should be attributed to any individual contributor or to the author. — 232 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise ENDNOTES 1. “Two independent agencies—the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Nine Department of Defense elements—the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and intelligence elements of the five DoD services; the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force. Seven elements of other departments and agencies—the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence; the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis and U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence; the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Office of National Security Intelligence; the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “What We Do: Members of the IC,” https://www.dni. gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic (accessed March 8, 2023). 2. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Mission,” https://www.intelligence.gov/mission#:~:text=The%20 Intelligence%20Community's%20mission%20is,law%20enforcement%2C%20and%20the%20military (accessed February 24, 2023). 3. Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ documents/second-annual-message-9 (accessed March 6, 2023). 4. Christopher Porter, “Seven Questions the Next President Will Need the Intelligence Community to Answer to Win the Technology Competition with China,” LinkedIn, March 14, 2023, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ seven-questions-next-president-need-intelligence-community-porter/?trackingId=Dl9RF5CnSwWnAO7r9gg HiQ%3D%3D (accessed March 18, 2023). 5. H.R. 2845, Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Public Law No. 108-458, 108th Congress, December 17, 2004, https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ458/PLAW-108publ458.pdf (accessed March 6, 2004). 6. Testimony of Philip Zelikow, Executive Director, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, in hearing, Assessing America’s Counterterrorism’s Capabilities, Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, 108th Congress, 2d Session, August 3, 2004, p. 55, https://ia802906.us.archive.org/31/items/gov. gpo.fdsys.CHRG-108shrg95506/CHRG-108shrg95506.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023). 7. Michael Allen, Blinking Red: Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence After 9/11 (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2013), p. 155; Interview with Robert Gates, April 19, 2012. 8. Allen, Blinking Red, p. 154; Robert Gates e-mail to Andy Card, January 11, 2005; handwritten note from Robert Gates, January 20, 2005. 9. Interview with John Ratcliffe, December 15, 2022. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. S. 258, National Security Act of 1947, Public Law No. 80-253, 80th Congress, July 26, 1947, https://govtrackus. s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/61/STATUTE-61-Pg495.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 13. President Ronald Reagan, Executive Order 12333, “United States Intelligence Activities,” December 4, 1981, in Federal Register, Vol. 46, No. 235 (December 8, 1981), pp. 59941–59954, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/ pkg/FR-1981-12-08/pdf/FR-1981-12-08.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 14. President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13470, “Further Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities,” July 30, 2008, in Federal Register, Vol. 73, No. 150 (August 4, 2008), pp. 45325–45342, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2008-08-04/pdf/E8-17940.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). See also President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13355, “Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community,” August 27, 2004, in Federal Register, Vol. 69, No. 169 (September 1, 2004), pp. 53593–53597, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2004-09-01/pdf/04-20051.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 15. U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, “Trusted Workforce 2.0 and Continuous Vetting,” https://www.dcsa.mil/mc/pv/cv/ (accessed March 9, 2023). 16. 50 U.S. Code § 3093(e), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3093 (accessed February 24, 2023). 17. 50 U.S. Code § 3093(a). 18. 50 U.S. Code § 3093(a)(4).

Introduction

Low 54.0%
Pages: 236-238

— 203 — Intelligence Community authorities—to break institutional silos that had caused past intelligence inte- gration failures. Originally envisioned by the 9/11 Commission as a strengthened, authoritative position, the final congressionally negotiated product signed by President Bush has led to ambiguous and vague authorities that are dependent on who is selected as DNI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and their level of support from the White House and National Security Council (NSC). 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow warned in a 2004 hearing that creating a new agency “lacking any existing institutional base…would require authorities at least as strong as those we have proposed or else it would create a bureaucratic fifth wheel that would make the present situation even worse.”6 The ODNI has become that bureaucratic fifth wheel about which Zelikow warned. For example, under the Bush Administration’s initial legislative proposal, the CIA Director would have been under the “authority, direction, and control” of the DNI and no longer the head of an autonomous agency. Additional mechanisms envisioned full budget authority for the DNI, including within DOD’s intelligence components, as opposed to coordinating authority. Through arduous “sau- sage-making” and relatively quick negotiations, lawmakers produced statutorily vague authorities that traded away the DNI’s ability to direct budgetary authority across the entire IC, including DOD, and left the CIA a subordinate but indepen- dent agency with duties to report to the DNI without explicit directing authority. These statutory developments were what led President Bush’s first choice to serve as DNI, Robert Gates, to turn down the position. In discussions with the White House over the post, Gates noted that the “legislation weakened the lead- ership of the community” and that “instead of a stronger person, you ended up with a weaker person because the DNI had no troops and no additional powers really on the budget, hiring, and firing.”7 Gates noted that success would require the President to “make explicit publicly that the DNI is head of the Intelligence Community, not some budgeter or coordinator,” and that “[t]he position’s only prayer of success is for the president to say plainly…how he sees the job. Without his explicit mandate…the endeavor is doomed to fail.”8 One of the two DNIs confirmed by the Senate during the Trump Administra- tion, John Ratcliffe, acknowledged that Gates’s theoretical concerns became the practical reality that he inherited: Prior DNIs were the head of the IC only on paper and were routinely accustomed to yielding IC actions and decisions to the preferences of the CIA and other agencies. My ability to begin reversing that capitulation was accomplished solely because President Trump made it repeatedly clear to the entire national security apparatus that he expected all intelligence matters to go through the DNI.9

Introduction

Low 54.0%
Pages: 236-238

— 203 — Intelligence Community authorities—to break institutional silos that had caused past intelligence inte- gration failures. Originally envisioned by the 9/11 Commission as a strengthened, authoritative position, the final congressionally negotiated product signed by President Bush has led to ambiguous and vague authorities that are dependent on who is selected as DNI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and their level of support from the White House and National Security Council (NSC). 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow warned in a 2004 hearing that creating a new agency “lacking any existing institutional base…would require authorities at least as strong as those we have proposed or else it would create a bureaucratic fifth wheel that would make the present situation even worse.”6 The ODNI has become that bureaucratic fifth wheel about which Zelikow warned. For example, under the Bush Administration’s initial legislative proposal, the CIA Director would have been under the “authority, direction, and control” of the DNI and no longer the head of an autonomous agency. Additional mechanisms envisioned full budget authority for the DNI, including within DOD’s intelligence components, as opposed to coordinating authority. Through arduous “sau- sage-making” and relatively quick negotiations, lawmakers produced statutorily vague authorities that traded away the DNI’s ability to direct budgetary authority across the entire IC, including DOD, and left the CIA a subordinate but indepen- dent agency with duties to report to the DNI without explicit directing authority. These statutory developments were what led President Bush’s first choice to serve as DNI, Robert Gates, to turn down the position. In discussions with the White House over the post, Gates noted that the “legislation weakened the lead- ership of the community” and that “instead of a stronger person, you ended up with a weaker person because the DNI had no troops and no additional powers really on the budget, hiring, and firing.”7 Gates noted that success would require the President to “make explicit publicly that the DNI is head of the Intelligence Community, not some budgeter or coordinator,” and that “[t]he position’s only prayer of success is for the president to say plainly…how he sees the job. Without his explicit mandate…the endeavor is doomed to fail.”8 One of the two DNIs confirmed by the Senate during the Trump Administra- tion, John Ratcliffe, acknowledged that Gates’s theoretical concerns became the practical reality that he inherited: Prior DNIs were the head of the IC only on paper and were routinely accustomed to yielding IC actions and decisions to the preferences of the CIA and other agencies. My ability to begin reversing that capitulation was accomplished solely because President Trump made it repeatedly clear to the entire national security apparatus that he expected all intelligence matters to go through the DNI.9 — 204 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise To help further the legislative intent behind IRTPA, DNI Ratcliffe advised during the transition of incoming Biden DNI Avril Haines that the DNI should be the only Cabinet-level intelligence official.10 While his recommendation was adopted and has corrected the previously allowed imbalance by making the DNI the only Cabinet official and head of the IC at the table, the ODNI’s effectiveness and direction leave much to be desired. A conservative President must decide how to empower an individual to oversee and manage the Intelligence Community effectively. To be successful, the DNI and ODNI must be able to lead the IC and implement the President’s intelligence priorities. This includes being able to exercise both budget and personnel authority and being able to rely on timely, useful feedback from subordinate components of the IC, many of which are located within other Cabinet agencies. The ODNI needs to direct, not replicate in-house, the other IC agencies’ analytic, operational, and management functions. Considerations like mismanagement of human resources, joint-duty assignments, and accelerated growth in senior personnel can cause a President to dictate to his incoming DNI a desire to slash redundant positions and expenditures while simultaneously giving the DNI the authority to drive necessary changes throughout the IC to deal with the nation’s most compelling threats, including those emanating from China. As John Ratcliffe has noted, “These are essential to the DNI having the abilities and authorities to effectively direct, coordinate, and tackle the immense national security challenges ahead for the Intelligence Community as intended under IRTPA.”11 Otherwise, other Cabinet and subordinate IC agencies will continue to regard the ODNI as an annoyance and not as a positive contributor to the National Intel- ligence Program (NIP) budget. They will continue to work around or circumvent ODNI leadership decisions with appropriators and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) or seek to wait out an Administration or DNI to prevent a policy or intelligence priority from reaching fruition. Intelligence and interagency coordination has improved significantly since 9/11. Nevertheless, interagency rivalries and festering issues continue to cause duplication of effort on intelligence analysis and technology purchases as well as overclassification and ever-increasing compartmentalization. Additional issues include the abuse of mandated onboarding approval and reciprocity timelines by some agencies, recruitment and retention failures, and a lack of will to remove underperforming or timely adjudicate the misconduct of senior managers and other employees. Finally, future IC leadership must address the widely promoted “woke” cul- ture that has spread throughout the federal government with identity politics and “social justice” advocacy replacing such traditional American values as patriotism, colorblindness, and even workplace competence.

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About These Correlations

Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.