2025-06-14 BBILAN National Collaborative Resilience Strategy Initiative
We have arrived at a historic opportunity for national innovation. The opening stems from President Trump’s March 18, 2025 Executive Order #14239 mandating the preparation of a National Resilience Strategy by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) by June 19, 2025.[1] We offer here a non-partisan roadmap intended to fortify the strengths of the President’s approach, while addressing its risks by a proposed Supplemental Draft Executive Order.
Strengths of Executive Orders #14239, #14179 and Related Executive Orders and Policy Statements
Executive Order #14239, read together with other important Executive Orders and policy statements in particular #14179 on Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence make important contributions on several fronts. First, Executive Order #14239 recognizes the chance to conceive and effectively implement a National Resilience Strategy. Second, in combination with Executive Order #14144 it addresses the vulnerability of states and local communities to cyber-attacks as a national security threat.[2] Third, these Executive Orders point to Artificial Intelligence as a strategic technology in both military and economic spheres, especially in light of China’s advances in this new frontier, as well as being a catalyst for economic growth and resilience.[3] Fourth, they seek to unlock the genius of local communities by encouraging grassroots experimentation and innovation in education and other fields.[4]
Vulnerabilities of Executive Order #14239 and Gaps and Contradictions in National Resilience Policies
At the same time, the President’s call for a National Resilience Strategy offers a unique opportunity to address certain legal and policy conflicts and contradictions, which, if effectively adjusted, will greatly fortify national, state, and local resilience. Specifically:
These policies reflect a selective approach to industrial policy that invites government bureaucrats to pick winners and losers for financial and other support, in particular in the energy and telecommunications sectors. This strategy has been proven to be flawed. The market is generally a better judge than bureaucrats.
Second, they fail to address our country’s increasing reliance and local dependence on wireless internet infrastructure, which is already jeopardizing national security by making local communities far less resilient. Moreover, the wireless industry consumes and wastes vast amounts of energy which will compound the increasing energy demands of the AI industry.[5] Further, the proliferation of cell towers permitted without the sign-off of a professional electrical engineer present a significant fire risk, as well documented in Malibu, California and other locations.[6]
The President’s Executive Order misses the opportunity to integrate the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Make America Healthy Again (MAHA)” policy. In particular, we urge removal of the huge regulatory subsidies given to the wireless industry by compelling millions of Americans to bear billions of dollars in healthcare costs, especially children, pregnant women, and people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, arising from continuous over-exposure to electromagnetic radiation (EMF) emitted from densifying cell towers and, literally, billions of wireless devices. These regulatory subsidies are based on the FCC’s insistence that its 30-year-old maximum radiation exposure limits to the public are safe. Thousands of scientific papers refute this argument, which is based on outdated and assumptions proven to be incorrect. [7]
Reconciling Conflicts and Contradictions: Practical Recommendations
Clarify Definition of Resilience. It is customary to take “resilience” to mean the capacity to bounce back. But why return to something that is proven to fail? Why not bounce forward resiliently, turning adversity to advantage. This is the reason why the President’s call for a National Resilience Strategy is so timely. It offers a chance to turn a host of problems into opportunities.
Recognize Resilience as an important criterion as part of a new National Technology Policy selecting and supporting frontier strategic (military/economic) technologies like AI and Quantum Computing.
Notwithstanding the accelerating pace of change, it is still important to plan short, intermediate, and long term simultaneously.
Encourage balanced alternatives to dependence on wireless infrastructure; for example, optical fiber to the home, premises, workplace. Optical fiber is proven to be safer, energy conservative, less costly, closes digital divide, more robust, and doesn’t become obsolete every few years.
Sharpen Emergency Risk Assessment of catastrophe-prone projects such as the Goleta Load Pocket in Santa Barbara, CA which is a perfect triad of unexamined fire, earthquake, and landslide risks.
Integrate the National Resilience Strategy with HHS’ Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) Policy in the following ways:
Remove the regulatory subsidy of socializing the health care costs of overexposure to harmful RF emissions from electronic devices.
Assess Avoidable Healthcare Costs — HHS should undertake a serious assessment of independent peer-reviewed scientific evidence of the nexus between widespread RF exposure from electronic devices. There are many sources, including in the U.S. Joel Moskowitz, Environmental Health Trust, and International Commission on the Biological Effects of EMF (ICBE-EMF) that are challenging the wireless industry’s European lobbying advocacy group, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP).
Conduct a national survey of RF emission-related harms and assessment of national health care costs.
Explore innovative precedents that enable an “internalization” of these costs, including the Japanese system of charging polluters for their emissions and using the proceeds for the relief of victims. This mixed system provides simultaneous incentives for control of pollution with assistance to those without insurance or legal recourse.[8]
Repeal or Amend the 1996 Telecommunications Act Section 704(a). This provision is now obsolete and is likely unconstitutional, especially as its preemption provision is being interpreted by courts and local authorities to strip victims of RF pollution of a jury trial for relief of their injuries. This long overdue repeal or amendment can be achieved in 2025 by effective collaboration between the President and Congress. This single policy shift will accomplish the President’s twin goals of unlocking local creativity and innovation and contributing to grid stability, cybersecurity, and safety. (See: 704NoMore.org.)
Draft Executive Order Process: Accelerating Innovations
The purpose of the Draft Executive Order process is to reinforce the strengths of Executive Order #14329 and to offer practical ways to harmonize it with other important national and state policies. These recommendations, if acceptable, can then be incorporated either by the President issuing a revised Executive Order, or issuing a Supplemental Executive Order, or Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) incorporating these recommendations as part of its Report and its implementation. The goal of the Draft Executive Order process is to tap the genius of the American public in collaboration with the best thinking within the federal and state governments to accelerate a stream of innovations that will continuously fortify national resilience. The Draft Executive Order is intended to serve as a focal point for non-partisan inquiry, dialogue, debate, and innovations of all kinds. These are the essential elements of the proposed Collaborative Initiative:
Single Negotiation Text. The Draft will continuously be enriched by the curated contributions of members of the National Collaborative Initiative. It will build a valuable data base of resources and references made available to decision makers in government and members of the Collaborative.[9]
Tools for Collaborative Invention, Discovery, and Innovation. Members of the Cooperative will be introduced to some advanced methodologies of Collaborative Discovery, Invention, and Innovation. See: Julian Gresser, Inventing for Humanity—A Collaborative Strategy for Global Survival.
AI to Empower Local Resilience. We will make freely available to registered members of the Cooperative—Kokoro for Resilient Communities—a just released AI Wisdom app.
Monthly Zoom Discussion Groups will be held to provide updates on refinements to the Draft and its implementation.
Joining the Cooperative. Please click here to apply and register.
Conclusion
Executive Order #14239 represents an important first step mandating the preparation for a National Resilience Strategy (90-day deadline: June 19, 2025). It provides some guidelines but it is general in nature. It must be read and integrated with other Executive Orders to sense the direction of the President’s intentions. But it also leaves ample room for innovative thinking from a non-partisan, fresh perspective which can open new horizons of possibility and counterbalance forces that may actually impair and undermine national resilience.
We live in politically hyper-polarized times. This National Collaborative Initiative initiated by a proposed Draft Supplemental Executive Order offers a proven process to foster a nonpartisan, respectful dialogue around a critical national challenge—Strategic Resilience-—that the Administration may want to consider, for the subject is too fundamental and complex, and the stakes too high, for the Administration to tackle alone.
Notes
[1] For a comprehensive review of President Trump’s Executive Orders, see: Executive Orders of the Trump Administration in 2025.
[2] See June 6, 2025 Sustaining Select Efforts to Strengthen the Nation's Cybersecurity and Amending Executive Order 13694 and Executive Order 14144 – The White House.
[3] See position of White House AI Czar on China.
[4] Op.cit. See fn. 1.
[5] See, e.g. Reports on the Increasing Energy Consumption of Wireless Systems and Digital Ecosystem.
[6] See Susan Foster - PROTECTING LA COUNTY White Paper 11-15-22.pdf.
[7] See Science - Environmental Health Trust, and Electromagnetic Radiation Safety.
[9] The Draft Executive Order, along with commentaries, can serve to initiate a Single Negotiation Text, a powerful process which was successfully used by Julian Gresser, who was Co-Chair of the Japan Industrial Policy Group during the Carter Administration that developed a highly successful policy of federal support for the strategic semiconductor industry. (See: Julian Gresser, Partners in Prosperity—Strategic Industries for the United States and Japan, in particular, The Trigger Method.)