In a new Substack, I make the case that public factories are an important missing tool in the abundance toolkit.
Joel Dodge
@joeldodge07.bsky.social
Industrial Policy & Economic Security at Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator (https://www.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbilt-policy-accelerator/). Attorney, Policy Advisor, Writer. Views are my own.
As @leahstokes.bsky.social @joeldodge07.bsky.social and I told @zcolman.bsky.social of @politico.com this morning, we need to start early with a plan to tackle climate at speed and scale... and with results seen quick enough to build and sustain public support. www.eenews.net/articles/pro...
Project 2029? Democratic insiders make the case for focusing on climate change.
Seventeen essays outline a clean energy action plan for a future Democratic president.
eenews.net
NEW @rooseveltinstitute.org: as wildfires & heatwaves rage, we are not powerless. As 19 authors argue in our 157-page "Building Up in 2029" report, we can adapt & expand Biden & Trump experiments to create lasting state capacity to tackle climate change. 🧵🧵 rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
Building Up in 2029: How to Make Green Statecraft Durable
Explore 17 essays on durable US climate and industrial policy after Inflation Reduction Act rollbacks, covering governance, planning, finance, and production.
rooseveltinstitute.org
From big chain pharmacy closures to corporate pressure on independent pharmacies, access to medicine is under strain in New York City. In a new paper, Dana Brown & I have a plan to fix it. 🗽💊Introducing CityRx vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com/p/why-new-yo...
Why New York City Needs Public-Powered Pharmacies
New York City has a growing pharmacy gap, and the culprit is corporate power.
vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com
Every Democrat should commit to clawing this back and reallocating the money to clean energy supply chains
Nathaniel William Horadam@horadam.bsky.social · 2mo agoThe good news is he's gone in about 30 months and now there's precedent for cancelling and clawing back grant funds based on political priorities. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
1/ Amid all the hype around China's 15th FYP, worth revisiting this CTVC piece to understand how clean tech financing actually works in China — and what it means for Western strategy. www.ctvc.co/an-insiders-...
In a new @washingtonmonthly.bsky.social piece, I explain how this agenda from @repcasar.bsky.social & @usprogressives.bsky.social revives an American tradition of DIY progressivism that promotes affordability by using public factories to counter monopoly power washingtonmonthly.com/2026/05/18/p...
The Affordability Case for Public Factories
Public factories once helped America fight monopoly pricing. A new push would revive them to lower drug costs and ease supply bottlenecks.
washingtonmonthly.com
Congressman Greg Casar@repcasar.bsky.social · 3mo agoWe make your prescription drugs cheaper by saying if companies won’t make prescription drugs affordable, we’ll just make them ourselves. A vial of insulin goes from $300 a vial to $50. That's a bill from @schakowsky.house.gov and @warren.senate.gov.
NEW | Record exports of solar, batteries and EVs last month 📈 China’s exports for the ‘new three’ industries reached a record high of $21.9bn in March 2026, up 70% year-on-year, in the wake of the US-Israel war with Iran and changing export rebates for solar and batteries.
In the supply-shock era, we should revisit a lost industrial policy tool: public factories. 🏭In a new paper, Ganesh Sitaraman & I explore the history & future of US public factories. ⚡️In another paper, I propose public factories for critical energy components www.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbilt-p... 🧵
Public Factories
Our Work Public factories can be powerful means to support production of critical goods. Policymakers at all levels of government have deployed government-owned production facilities throughout Americ...
vanderbilt.edu
NEW from me and @joeldodge07.bsky.social for @rooseveltinstitute.org / Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator: Trump is using the Defense Production Act to promote fossil fuel of a major donor. We show how it could instead be used to promote clean energy Abundance. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
Trump Wields Defense Production Act to Promote Fossil Fuels. It Could Instead Be Used to Promote All-of-the-Above Energy Abundance.
Reasonable people might think the DPA is no longer serving its purpose and should be abandoned. We argue this would be a short-sighted mistake, given the likely severity of the crises the US will soon...
rooseveltinstitute.org
We’ve now seen the full downside cycle of submerged state industrial policy: enactors don’t get credit, and repeaters don’t get blame. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/b...
In Kentucky, People Blame Ford More Than Trump for Lost Factory Jobs
nytimes.com
Wrote for @heatmap.news with @narayansub.bsky.social about a largely forgotten effort at American energy industrial policy—the Energy Security Act of 1980—and the lessons it holds for new efforts today: heatmap.news/ideas/energy...
The Last Time America Tried to Legislate Its Way to Energy Affordability
Lawmakers today should study the Energy Security Act of 1980.
heatmap.news
Companies receiving equity infusions outperforming the S&P500. @joeldodge07.bsky.social offers thoughts on why. www.cnn.com/2025/11/17/i...
Uncle Sam is outperforming the S&P 500 | CNN Business
The Trump administration is investing in publicly traded companies — and it’s sending stocks soaring higher.
cnn.com
Good post from @joeldodge07.bsky.social running down the reasons for governments to take equity stakes in companies. vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com/p/the-cases-...
The Cases for Government Equity Stakes
Over the last few months, the second Trump administration has embarked upon a spree of deals taking equity stakes in private companies.
vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com
Great piece on how Trump’s R&D austerity and privatization moves amount to negative industrial policy.
Tim Fernholz@timfernholz.com · 10mo agoI have a new essay in Bloomberg Weekend about how important government science is to advanced tech like SpaceX's Starship, and what we can expect from big cuts to government R&D: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Last week, Jamie Dimon announced JPMorganChase was creating a Trump-aligned $1.5 trillion industrial policy fund. In a new post for Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator's Substack, I explain the perils of this kind of privatized industrial policy. vanderbiltpolicyaccelerator.substack.com/p/the-perils...
I talked to the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator’s Joel Dodge about Trump’s unique brand of authoritarian-flavored industrial policy for this week’s @washingtonmonthly.com roundup: open.substack.com/pub/washingt...
L'etat, c'est Trump
Trump's version of "state capitalism" is just another facet of his self-dealing authoritarianism. It may enrich his family but will beggar the economy.
open.substack.com
10/ The transition will happen with or without US participation. By withdrawing from these industries and blocking allies from Chinese partnerships, America risks becoming a bystander to the biggest economic transformation of our time.
The Green Marshall Plan is happening. It’s just being led by China.
Jonas Nahm@jonasnahm.com · 11mo ago2/ Chinese firms have committed $227+ billion across 461 green manufacturing projects in 54 countries since 2011 - with 88% of investment occurring just since 2022. This dwarfs the $200 billion Marshall Plan (in today's dollars).
The president uses government leverage to extract equity stakes, profit-sharing deals, and special voting rights from major corporations. These are familiar tools—but Trump’s unchecked dealmaking could be disastrous. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/03/t...
Trump’s Industrial Policy: What’s Right and Wrong
Trump’s industrial policy includes equity stakes, profit-sharing, and golden shares in major corporations. The outcome could be disastrous.
washingtonmonthly.com
Industrial policies like public ownership of corporate equity are powerful means of aligning corporate actions with gov priorities—but they can thus also become tools for consolidating authoritarian power. Rather than rejecting policies outright, we need better discussions on democratic guardrails
Washington Monthly@washingtonmonthly.bsky.social · 11mo agoThe president uses government leverage to extract equity stakes, profit-sharing deals, and special voting rights from major corporations. These are familiar tools—but Trump’s unchecked dealmaking could be disastrous. washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/03/t...
I did a deep dive for the @washingtonmonthly.com taking stock of the emerging Trump II industrial policy and where it might be headed. Link below: 🧵1/8
This theory from @ryanlcooper.com is perhaps the only sensible explanation for the US whipsawing from green industrial policy to brown industrial policy. prospect.org/environment/...
Is the Republican Party a Chinese Communist Conspiracy?
The Senate GOP just voted to destroy the economies of their own districts and hand 21st century industry to a foreign adversary.
prospect.org
The industrial policy see-saw: One party tries to use it to reduce carbon emissions, the other party switches to a version that increases them.
Heatmap News@heatmap.news · last yr.NEW: A tax on solar and wind projects in the Senate mega-bill could "indefinitely undermine renewables development in America," reports @jael.bsky.social. Full story below, feat. @andrewreagan.bsky.social of @ceforamerica.org and @jessedjenkins.com.
👀 “The deal will also give the U.S. government a “golden share” in the company, a rarely used practice through which the government takes a stake in company.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/b...
U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel Say Their ‘Partnership’ Is Sealed
nytimes.com
The IRA’s vulnerability in a nutshell: “Until we see somebody get hired, until somebody goes to Kroger’s and tells their friend in the produce section, ‘Hey, I just got a job there,’ it’s not real yet” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/c...
In Georgia, Republicans Vote to Kill Green Jobs but Face Little Fallout
nytimes.com
I suspect this is true and if so it is just an epically, fatefully, cosmically awful decision that will condemn this country to long-term decline.
Patrick George@patrickgeorge.bsky.social · last yr.Best thing I've read on the "Why?" of this comes from @politico.com this week. Basically, China's already way ahead on battery power/EVs so we're just gonna double-down on oil and gas, because that's what we do, and fuck it: www.politico.com/news/2025/05...