Washington Monthly - Why We Need a New Tennessee Valley Authority

Legal director Sandeep Vaheesan’s book Democracy in Power is highlighted in the article as a compelling call to reimagine government not as a barrier, but as a builder—drawing on the history of public power to advocate for a renewed, democratic role for the state in driving the clean energy transition.

It is not just deep state conspiracy theorists or the president’s henchmen who dislike government these days. Even on the left, there is mounting frustration with the ways in which bureaucracy proves an impediment to building things the country very much needs, like clean energy infrastructure and housing. Environmental review processes, administrative requirements for public participation, protracted and nitpicky judicial review, labor and domestic content requirements, and zoning and siting restrictions all slow down and sometimes outright destroy worthwhile projects. (See Alan Ehrenhalt’s review of Why Nothing Works, and Zephyr Teachout’s review of Abundance.)

The exigency of the climate crisis lends these complaints some force, at least when they align with empirics rather than serve as convenient scapegoats. Responding to climate change will require building a lot of things, quickly. We need massive quantities of wind and solar, long-distance transmission lines, battery storage facilities, and more. But what if we were to reconceptualize government not simply as an impediment to these ventures but as a potential powerhouse itself? (Pun intended.) 

Enter Sandeep Vaheesan’s lively new book, Democracy in Power, which paints a striking portrait of how federal, state, and local governments collaboratively built much of the U.S. electricity system over the first half of the twentieth century. Vaheesan then uses this history to spin off a future in which the government’s role in public power is revivified to construct a decarbonized and democratized energy system. 

Read full article here.