In The New York Review of Books: Expanding Public Ownership in the Power Sector
In an essay published in The New York Review of Books, Sandeep Vaheesan, Legal Director at the Open Markets Institute and author of the book "Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in the United States” makes a case for expanding public ownership in the U.S. electric power sector—arguing that an expansion of democratically controlled public power is the best way to secure affordable energy and decarbonization.
In “Building the Electrostate,” Vaheesan draws on his historical research on the New Deal era to trace how federal institutions like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Electrification Administration enabled a nationwide revolution in living standards by bringing light and power to all parts of the United States. The federal government expanded the supply of low-cost hydroelectricity and financed and worked with communities to stand up rural electric cooperatives. These institutions not only delivered cheap and reliable electricity but also pressured their private counterparts to offer better service at lower rates, a philosophy that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dubbed “yardstick competition.”
In his essay, Vaheesan makes the case that:
Public and cooperative power are proven and durable models in the United States. They helped deliver universal electrification. Today, around one in four power customers are served by one of the more than 2,500 publicly owned utilities and rural electric cooperatives.
Whereas New Deal power institutions are almost a century old, the more technocratic recent approach to the power sector, exemplified by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, has been far more politically fragile. The rollback of the IRA in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act shows that the landmark law lacked sufficiently powerful popular or elite constituencies.
The energy affordability and climate crises are not going away, and must both be addressed together.
The 1920s offer hope for today: In a decade of big business-friendly politics in Washington, public power advocates and organizers laid the groundwork for the New Deal's public power victories in the 1930s.
Instead of attempting an IRA 2.0 in a post-Trump era, Vaheesan argues public power is the best option for lowering rates, improving reliability, and accelerating decarbonization.
Read the full essay in The New York Review of Books.
About the Author
Sandeep Vaheesan is Legal Director at the Open Markets Institute, where he leads research and advocacy on antitrust law, economic regulation, and democratic governance. His writings have appeared in The Yale Law Journal Forum, Harvard Law & Policy Review, The New Republic, and many other outlets and publications.
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