Dear friends of FAI:

I’m pleased to share an update on the Foundation for American Innovation’s latest work. Our third quarter was characteristically energetic, in terms of both output and growth. If you have not yet had the opportunity, please read our recent profile in Inc., suitably titled “Meet the Rave-Throwing Think Tank Shaping the Tech Right.”

This quarter, we launched a new science policy program under the direction of Director of Science Policy Ian Banks, aimed at driving fundamental reforms to revitalize America’s scientific enterprise and restore its global competitive edge. The program will establish the intellectual infrastructure and network on the right for principled engagement in the science reform movement. Its goal is to develop practical proposals that enhance scientific productivity while preserving America's research advantages and resourcing. Check out our mention in Politico.

We also welcomed Creative Director Christopher McCaffery; Operations Associate Miranda Brewen; Research Fellow Daniel King; Senior Fellow Dean Ball; Non-Resident Senior Fellows James Coleman, Madison Hilly, and Jack Andreasen Cavanaugh; and Non-Resident Fellows Arthur James, Prineha Narang, and Jamie Susskind. We also have a number of open positions. If you think you might be a good fit, please consider applying.

We’re getting ready for our American Innovation Gala on November 13 in Washington, DC. Tickets and sponsorships are available now. We hope you can join us.

Research

Reports, Testimonies, and Letters

Director of Technology Policy Luke Hogg wrote an op-ed with Shane Tews, a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, for the Wall Street Journal on the need for America to set global technology standards to remain competitive with China.

In the Financial Times, Senior Fellow Dan Lips argued that misspending and fraud cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year and noted that the Trump administration and Congress will have a bipartisan opportunity this fall to enact comprehensive reforms to prevent wasteful spending.

General Counsel and Senior Fellow Tim Hwang filed an amicus brief in the Bartz v. Anthropic case asking the Ninth Circuit to pause the certification of a class of rightsholders before ruling on the merits of the inclusion of works used to train Anthropic’s AI models. The brief focused on how allowing class certification would create a “death knell” situation for the firm and have harmful repercussions for future investments in AI development, the open source AI ecosystem, and the use of AI by the national security community.

Chief Economist Samuel Hammond testified before the U.S. House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation. He described the rapid advances in frontier AI systems and warned that the United States must act quickly to monitor capabilities, secure computing resources, and adapt its institutions.

Tim, Research Fellow Joshua Levine, and Research Fellow Samuel Roland produced “After Fair Use: AI and Copyright,” a symposium featuring new papers by experts on challenges for copyright law in handling transformative tech.

Tim and Non-Resident Fellow Quade MacDonald published a paper, “Restoring American Space Dominance: Special Economic Zones.” They argue that states, policymakers, and space commercial companies wishing to propel America’s national space program forward could band together and form a Space Coast Compact, a special economic zone that makes use of the principles of interstate compacts.

Director of Infrastructure Thomas Hochman testified about energy permitting reform at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing where policymakers were considering a suite of permitting-related bills. His testimony noted the urgency of increasing America’s energy generation capacity.

Dan and Managing Director for Policy Robert Bellafiore released a paper, “Preparing American Students and Workers for the AI Workforce Transformation: Recommendations for the White House and Executive Branch.” They argue that America’s K-12 and postsecondary education systems and job training programs are not designed to prepare students and workers for a labor market that is disrupted by AI and offer recommendations for how the Trump administration can help the education system adapt to a changing economy.

Thomas co-led a coalition letter encouraging permitting reform and passage of the SPEED Act.

We launched a new podcast, Right of Way, where Thomas and Policy Advisor Pavan Venkatakrishnan discuss energy policy, energy politics, and the upcoming permitting reform fight.

Ian led a coalition letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy outlining four critical priorities for U.S. scientific competitiveness.

Commentary and Impact

Several policies that our scholars have engaged on saw progress this quarter.

• As Samuel Hammond explained the day after its release, the administration’s AI Action Plan reflects several recommendations made by members of the FAI team, including bolstering export controls on advanced AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing, expediting environmental permitting for data center and energy projects, unlocking federal lands in regions that can support large AI clusters, and strengthening oversight of frontier AI companies to avoid worst-case scenarios.
• We were among the first to sound the alarm about the growth in purchases of U.S. farmland near military bases by companies affiliated with the Chinese government, and we have called for reforms to the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. The Department of Agriculture recently announced several such reforms, including the creation of an online filing system for Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act reports and heightened efforts to end the purchase of farmland by foreign adversaries. Reporting on the effort, the New York Times recently cited our work on the topic.
• We’ve also warned about the cybersecurity risks posed by the U.S. government’s dependence on Chinese drones and have called for better oversight of federal and state drone fleets. To that end, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has begun investigating how drones imported from abroad endanger U.S. national security.
• Dan argued last year that the Department of Government Efficiency should use AI to review and eliminate unnecessary regulations. DOGE’s new “DOGE AI Deregulation Decision Tool” will do just that, reviewing federal regulations to identify ones that are no longer required by law and can be cut.
• Dan and Robert have called for new technologies such as drones as a partial solution to the insecure southern border. To that end, the reconciliation bill allocates funds to Customs and Border Protection for drones to stop human smuggling across the border.
• The energy and infrastructure team leveraged the baseload coalition to secure a “baseload carve-out” during reconciliation, preserving critical tax credits for nuclear, geothermal, hydroelectric, and energy storage.
• The energy team also helped to secure $1 billion in credit subsidy for the Loan Programs Office in reconciliation—a shift from the original House text, which would have effectively defunded the office.
• Key elements of our proposed administrative National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reforms were taken up in the recent data center permitting executive order.
• Several Green Tape posts were entered into the Congressional Record.

Our commentary included the following:

• Robert Bellafiore, “A Feature Not a Bug: Managerialism as Operating System,” in American Affairs
• Robert Bellafiore and Luke Hogg, “The Illusion of Tech Exit,” in The Republic
• Emmet Penney, “Raking in the Chips,” in the Claremont Review of Books
• Farrell Gregory, “Americans Still Underestimate China,” in Compact
• Luke Hogg and Tim Hwang, “Cloudflare’s Troubling Shift from Guardian to Gatekeeper,” in Tech Policy Press
• Richard Reisman, “To Make Sure AI Advances Democracy, First Ask, ‘Who Does It Serve?’” in Tech Policy Press
• David Cowan, “How the Georgians Embraced Energy Abundance,” in Engelsberg Ideas
• Samuel Hammond, “Trump’s Misguided Chips Deal with China,” in City Journal
• Lars Erik Schönander, “Improving Data Collection on Forced Labor,” in the National Interest
• Richard Reisman, “How to Reclaim Social Media from Big Tech,” in Persuasion
• Robert Bellafiore, “Capitalism Buries Its Undertakers,” in Commonplace
• Lars Erik Schönander, “Congress Must Improve Science Commercialization,” in RealClearScience
• Emmet Penney, “America’s Coal Age,” in the American Conservative
• Dan Lips, “Congress Should Reform the Government Accountability Office, not Gut It,” in The Hill
• Farrell Gregory, “Rare Earths Are the Key to Winning the China-US Trade War,” in The Diplomat
• Kevin Hawickhorst, “Fixing Congressional Oversight Starts with Caseworkers,” in The Fulcrum
• Luke Hogg, “Oracle Is Powering China’s Surveillance State,” in the National Interest
• Reynold Schweickhardt, “When Will Congress Support Trump's AI Agenda?” in Townhall
• Robert Bellafiore, “Ari Aster’s Paranoid Style,” in Fusion
• Samuel Hammond, “The Chip Security Act: A Bipartisan Solution to Chip Smuggling”
• Dan Lips, Lars Erik Schönander, and Elsa Johnson, “Securing American Innovation by Improving Research Security”
• Soren Dayton, “Fixing Duplicate Medicaid Enrollments through Smart Government IT”
• Dan Lips, “Congress Should Rescind Unspent COVID-19 Relief Funds”

Our writers were also busy on their Substacks and blogs:

• On Green Tape, Thomas wrote about the permitting grand bargain, the Office of Strategic Capital, the LPO, and the Clean Water Act.
• On Legislative Procedure, James wrote about the legality of pocket rescissions.
• On Statutory Alpha, Samuel Roland wrote about NEPA in the AI era.
• On Nuclear Barbarians, Senior Fellow Emmet Penney wrote about “father of light” Samuel Insull and more.
• On Prototyping Politics, Director of Governance Soren Dayton wrote about strong factions and what the pocket rescission really reveals.
• On Hyperdimensional, Senior Fellow Dean Ball wrote about working in the White House, how he approaches AI policy, and the AI action plan.
• On Policy Gradients, Daniel wrote about PJM and Non-Capacity-Backed Load.

Highlights among our media hits included the following:

• Josh spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the ongoing fights over whether AI can legally train on copyrighted material.
• Politico wrote a mini-profile on our influence in the AI sphere.
• As noted above, Inc. published a profile of us.
• Time magazine quoted Dean about his experience working on AI policy within the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
• The New York Times cited Lars’s research on Chinese acquisition of U.S. farmland.
• The New York Times cited a coalition letter led by Thomas fighting cuts to the LPO.

Fellowships

This summer we launched the Conservative AI Policy Fellowship, a six-week program designed to equip early- and mid-career professionals with tools to navigate the fast-moving AI policy landscape. Fellows participated in seminars, simulations, and an intensive weekend retreat. They gained substantive expertise and developed a strong network of peers committed to shaping AI policy from a conservative perspective.

The program is already bearing fruit, with two fellows taking AI roles at the White House. By training this new generation of leaders, the fellowship is helping ensure that the American right is prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of the AI era.

Events

This quarter, we hosted events with some of our favorite organizations and thinkers.

We cochaired the Abundance Conference 2025 with the Breakthrough Institute, joined by cohosts including the American Conservation Coalition, Abundance Network, Center for Public Enterprise, Employ America, Economic Innovation Group, Federation of American Scientists, Inclusive Abundance, Institute for Progress, Metropolitan Abundance Project, Niskanen Center, the R Street Institute, Welcoming Neighbors Network, and YIMBY Action. The two-day event convened a cross-ideological coalition to advance an abundance agenda for energy, housing, science, immigration, and infrastructure. The day before, we hosted the American Abundance Reception, a VIP gathering of senior policymakers to support the movements for abundance and human flourishing.

We partnered with the Institute for Progress to launch Moonshots, a new happy hour series convening policy thinkers, founders, and researchers. The July kickoff commemorated the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission launch, a pivotal project and iconic achievement in American history, with a rooftop cookout overlooking the U.S. Capitol.

In San Francisco, we celebrated the release of Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, by the Hoover Institution’s Dan Wang, and discussed China’s industrial policy and global technological ambitions.

We hosted FAI Bay Day in San Francisco, bringing together technologists and policy enthusiasts for drinks and free-wheeling conversation. The event highlighted opportunities in Washington, DC, for sharp minds eager to shape America’s role in the AI race and the future of technology policy.

Other highlights among the events featuring our speakers included the following:

• At the AI Security Forum in Washington, DC, Samuel Hammond spoke on a panel about “The Path Forward for AI Security.”
• Luke joined a panel hosted by the Internet Education Foundation about “Verifying the Future: Kids Age Regulation, SCOTUS, and AI Boundaries.”
• Research Associate Elsa Johnson spoke on a Heritage Foundation panel about “How to Stop ‘Academic Espionage’ on Campus” and her investigations into Chinese academic espionage at Stanford University.
• Samuel Hammond joined Americans for Responsible Innovation for a webinar on “Decoding the AI Action Plan: Analyzing the Administration’s Blueprint for AI.”

Podcasts

On The Dynamist, Senior Fellow Evan Swarztrauber brought on some of today’s most important thinkers and doers to discuss the future of technology, governance, and innovation. Recent episodes have featured Sen. Joni Ernst and Oren Cass of American Compass.

On Right of Way, Thomas discussed energy policy, energy politics, and the upcoming permitting reform negotiations with figures including Daniel Palken of Arnold Ventures, Liam Donovan of Targeted Victory, and Yogin Kothari of Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition.

On Nuclear Barbarians, Emmet explored the nuclear world with guests including Matt Loszak of Aalo Atomics and Joe Klecha of The Nuclear Company.

On Politics in Question, James and his cohost, New America’s Lee Drutman, discussed the government shutdown, Congress’s constitutional role in checking the executive, and more.

Book Recommendations

The FAI team has been getting into some great books in recent months. Here are a few that members of the FAI team recommend:

• Gargantua and Pantagruel, by François Rabelais
• God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion, by Norbert Weiner
• Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan Wang
• The Kremlin Ball, by Curzio Malaparte
• Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, by Henry Adams
• A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, by Edward N. Luttwak
• The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, by Jack E. Davis

You can also see a longer list of our recommendations on our Bookshop page.

Coming Soon

We have many projects in the works and are excited about the next few months. We’ll be publishing an updated state permitting playbook, as well as reports on large modular reactors, American tech companies’ involvement in China, and more. And be sure to get your ticket for the American Innovation Gala on November 13!

Thank you for following our work. We appreciate your continued interest in FAI and welcome any questions or feedback.

Sincerely,

Zach Graves
President & CEO
Foundation for American Innovation