On 24 July 2024, US Senators John Hickenlooper and Shelley Moore Capito introduced the Validation and Evaluation for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (VET AI) Act to create guidelines for third-party AI audits. The introduction of the bill follows an announcement from Hickenlooper at the start of the month expressing the intention to introduce the bill when the Senate returned from recess, with Capito joining as a co-sponsor between the two announcements.

The bill requires the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop voluntary guidelines and specifications for internal and external assurances of artificial intelligence systems, adding to the agency’s actions under the AI Executive Order and its contributions to AI Governance through its Risk Management Framework (RMF).