Joel Dodge
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Industrial Policy & Economic Security at Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. Views are my own.
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Articles by Joel Dodge
We Don’t Have to Import Inflation: Policy Lessons from the Strait of Hormuz and Ukraine Supply Crises
Inflation has posed a destabilizing risk to both economies and democratic institutions, as shown in this decade through the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the supply shocks resulting from the invasion of Ukraine. Progressive policymakers must develop more proactive approaches than the limited, reactive tool kit central bankers have at their disposal to prevent inflation shocks.
The Fed can't protect consumers from supply shocks and price gouging - but Congress can
By Sameera Fazili & Joel Dodge As global disruptions drive up Americans' grocery and gasoline prices, lawmakers need to take a stand The Iran war is cracking the global supply chain and spiking inflation, saddling consumers and businesses with higher costs. Supply-chain crises generate two types of inflation: "ripple-out" and "market power." But the Federal Reserve can't fix broken shipping lanes or corporate greed.
The Fed can't protect consumers from supply shocks and price gouging - but Congress can
By Sameera Fazili & Joel Dodge As global disruptions drive up Americans' grocery and gasoline prices, lawmakers need to take a stand The Iran war is cracking the global supply chain and spiking inflation, saddling consumers and businesses with higher costs. Supply-chain crises generate two types of inflation: "ripple-out" and "market power." But the Federal Reserve can't fix broken shipping lanes or corporate greed.
.css-1o8nh7k{color:var(--color-secondary300, secondary300);} Opinion: The two types of inflation the Fed can’t control — and how Congress must protect your wallet
Outside the Box Opinion: The two types of inflation the Fed can’t control — and how Congress must protect your wallet As permanent supply shocks drive up Americans’ grocery and gasoline prices, lawmakers need to take a stand Published: June 3, 2026 at 5:32 p.m. ET If it wasn’t clear before the Iran war closed the Strait of Hormuz, it is undeniable now: The world has entered an era of supply shocks.
The 2 types of inflation the Fed can't control - and how Congress must protect your wallet
By Sameera Fazili & Joel Dodge As permanent supply shocks drive up Americans' grocery and gasoline prices, lawmakers need to take a stand The Iran war is disrupting the global supply chain and spiking inflation, saddling consumers and businesses with higher costs. Supply-chain crises generate two types of inflation: "ripple-out" and "market power." But the Federal Reserve can't fix broken shipping lanes or corporate greed.
The Affordability Case for Public Factories
Last month, the Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled a “New Affordability Agenda,” a package of policy reforms aimed at addressing voters’ cost-of-living concerns. The agenda includes efforts to reduce the costs of childcare, housing, and electricity, among other household expenses. But one plank stood out as surprisingly bold: A proposal for the federal government to engage in the public production of prescription drugs.
The Case for Public Factories
In new research, Joel Dodge and Ganesh Sitaraman argue that a comprehensive industrial policy to secure American supply chains and ensure access to essential goods should incorporate the deployment of public factories. Over the last few years, a surprising policy idea has quietly reemerged in the United States: public factories.
Trump Wields the Defense Production Act to Promote Fossil Fuels. It Could Instead Be Used to Promote All-of-the-Above Energy Abundance.
This is a web-friendly preview of the brief. On March 13, the Department of Energy (DOE) invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) to order Sable Offshore Corporation, a Houston-based offshore oil and gas operation, to immediately resume pumping and transportation in California, overriding state regulators who had kept the pipeline offline after a 2015 oil spill.
The Last Time America Tried to Legislate Its Way to Energy Affordability
The past few years have seen wild, rapid swings in energy policy in the United States, from President Biden’s enthusiastic embrace of clean energy to President Trump’s equally enthusiastic re-embrace of fossil fuels. Where energy industrial policy goes next is less certain than any other moment in recent memory.
Trump’s Industrial Policy: What’s Right and Wrong
In recent months, Donald Trump’s administration has supplemented its globe-spanning tariffs with bespoke industrial policy deals with U.S. corporations. These include the federal government taking equity stakes in Intel, a “golden share” in U.S. Steel, and profit sharing on Nvidia and AMD’s chip sales in China. The deals have astonished and unnerved economic analysts across the political spectrum.
The Perils of Privatized Industrial Policy
Since retaking office this year, President Trump has ventured into new territory outside of the traditional modes of economic policymaking. Instead of relying on legislation and regulation, he has governed through deals struck with individual companies and pressure campaigns designed to coax corporations into advancing his goals. That shadow policymaking toolkit now appears to have a shadow industrial policy bank.
Trump’s Industrial Policy: What’s Right and Wrong
In recent weeks and months, Donald Trump’s administration has supplemented its globe-spanning tariffs with bespoke industrial policy deals with U.S. corporations. These include the federal government taking equity stakes in Intel, a “golden share” in U.S. Steel, and profit-sharing on Nvidia and AMD’s chip sales in China. The deals have astonished and unnerved economic analysts across the political spectrum.
Economic Security Is National Security: The Future of the Defense Production Act
The Defense Production Act of 1950 (DPA) is one of America’s oldest and most important industrial policy laws, reemerging in recent years as a vital tool for addressing urgent national crises. Yet for decades, the DPA was rarely used outside of the Department of Defense, and was hardly the subject of major policy debates or headline news. That changed over the last five years, as both presidents Trump and Biden increasingly came to rely on the law for a number of emergent needs.
Egg companies are getting government bailouts while price-gouging consumers
Egg prices reached another record high last month. It now costs American shoppers an average of $6.23 for a dozen eggs — nearly a five-fold increase since 2020. Yet while families have been squeezed by grocery sticker shock, agriculture corporations have been raking in record profits. Cal-Maine, the country’s largest egg producer, took in $509 million this quarter alone, tripling its profits from a year ago. Gouging consumers is bad enough.
Opinion - Egg companies are getting government bailouts while price-gouging consumers
Egg prices reached another record high last month. It now costs American shoppers an average of $6.23 for a dozen eggs — nearly a five-fold increase since 2020. Yet while families have been squeezed by grocery sticker shock, agriculture corporations have been raking in record profits. Cal-Maine, the country’s largest egg producer, took in $509 million this quarter alone, tripling its profits from a year ago. Gouging consumers is bad enough.
In Defense of Everything-Bagel Liberalism
In a 2023 New York Times column, Ezra Klein coined the term “everything-bagel liberalism” to describe the phenomenon of projects that liberals favor getting weighed down by seemingly ancillary requirements liberals impose on them. He noted, for instance, that in California, strict labor and environmental standards embedded in various pieces of legislation passed by the Democratic legislature over the years have made it too costly and time-consuming to build subsidized housing for the homeless.
How to Fix the Defense Production Act Committee
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Defense Production Act has emerged as one of the government’s go-to industrial policy tools for addressing urgent national needs and responding to crises. It expanded and hastened the production of ventilators, PPE, and vaccines during the pandemic. It has built up domestic energy security. It has helped resolve baby formula shortages. It has supported safe artificial intelligence development.
What Biden’s Budget Proposal Says About Climate Projects Original
NewslettersAuthorsClimatePoliticsEconomyCultureElectric Vehicles By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy Monthly $9.99 Auto-renews monthly Subscribe Annual $99.00 Lock in your annual rate Subscribe Our best value Unlimited access to Heatmap News Subscriber-only newsletters Advance access to future events Informative, engaging analysis and insights about climate issues Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your...
Texas Doesn’t Like the EPA’s New Methane Rules
NewslettersAuthorsClimatePoliticsEconomyCultureElectric Vehicles By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy Monthly $9.99 Auto-renews monthly Subscribe Annual $99.00 Lock in your annual rate Subscribe Our best value Unlimited access to Heatmap News Subscriber-only newsletters Advance access to future events Informative, engaging analysis and insights about climate issues Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your...
The Federal Reserve Needs to Get Serious About Climate Change Original
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Where the Republican 2024 Candidates Stand on Climate Change
NewslettersClimatePoliticsEconomyCultureElectric Vehicles Politics There’s a decent chance that whoever the Republican Party nominates for president in 2024 will eventually win the White House. That means they will have a huge sway over how — and whether — the United States pursues its energy and climate goals during this decisive decade for decarbonization.
The Military Advantage of a Climate Emergency Declaration
NewslettersClimatePoliticsEconomyCultureElectric Vehicles Politics After a summer of extreme heat, deadly wildfires, flash floods, and other foreboding harbingers of a warming planet, President Biden is once again facing pressure to (officially) declare a climate emergency. Activists have pressed him to unlock emergency powers to reinstate a ban on crude oil exports and suspend offshore drilling leases, among other measures.
My Hometown Is Getting a $100 Billion Dose of Bidenomics
On an empty patch of land in my hometown, a new economic order may be taking shape. Growing up around Syracuse, New York, at the turn of this century had its share of joys: post-blizzard sledding, minor-league baseball games, chance sightings of Syracuse University basketball players at Wegmans. But the area’s best days seemed to be slipping ever further into the past. One major employer after another abandoned the area for leaner workforces and cheaper pastures abroad.
Why New York City's Wildfire Smoke is a Wheezy Throwback
“An eye-smarting, throat-irritating twilight gray hung over New York, New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester all day,” reported The New York Times, warning local residents that “today is to be warm, which would prolong the four-day smoky haze plaguing the East.” True enough. Only, The New York Times published those words … back in 1953.
Republicans Might Have Just ‘Walked the Plank’ Over Climate Jobs
Twenty-six House Republicans may have just put big green targets on their own backs. Last month, the House passed a bill that would have raised the debt ceiling while also repealing most of the tax credits for clean energy projects enacted in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. That provision was a poison pill for President Biden and congressional Democrats, and was jettisoned in the final deal between the White House and Congress to lift the debt limit.
Republicans Might Have Just ‘Walked the Plank’ Over Climate Jobs
NewslettersAuthorsClimatePoliticsEconomyCultureElectric Vehicles By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy Monthly $9.99 Auto-renews monthly Subscribe Annual $99.00 Lock in your annual rate Subscribe Our best value Unlimited access to Heatmap News Subscriber-only newsletters Advance access to future events Informative, engaging analysis and insights about climate issues Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your...
Renovations Have Become an Essential Tool for Living with Climate Change
Home remodeling is something of an American subculture. Shows like Property Brothers, Fixer Upper, and Flip or Flop have sold us on the glamour, the righteousness, even, of taking hammers and drills and panels of drywall to old houses and making them appealing to Brooklynites with babies, replete with stainless steel and minimalist tiling. All that work doesn’t come cheap: The remodeling industry, as of 2021, is a $500 billion juggernaut.
The ‘90s Cellphone Law That Could Speed Up the Renewables Rollout
The landmark Inflation Reduction Act invested some $370 billion toward transitioning the United States to a clean energy economy. Yet turning that spending into actual new energy facilities – getting turbines in the air, and solar arrays on the ground – is another matter. How many facilities materialize, and how quickly, will hinge on countless permitting processes carried out in cities and towns around the country.
The climate president’s emissions bomb: On Biden and Willow
Joe Biden has been called the “climate president” — and deservedly so. As he boasted during last month’s State of the union address, his Inflation Reduction Act marks “the most significant investment ever to tackle the climate crisis.” Laws enacted during Biden’s tenure have collectively tripled the federal government’s annual spending on fighting climate change. So it came as a shock to some this week when he greenlit a “climate bomb” of new oil drilling on Alaskan federal land.
Roosevelt Institute - Progressive Preemption: How the Defense Production Act Can Override Corporate Extraction, Boost Worker Power, and Expedite the Clean Energy Transition
Todd Tucker Director, Industrial Policy and Trade As Director of Industrial Policy and Trade, Dr. Tucker, a political scientist, helps lead Roosevelt's work on the role of governance and institutions (both national and international) in facilitating economic transformation.
Why Liberals Should Embrace Permitting Reform
After passing important climate legislation this summer, Congress is turning to permitting reform—the “side deal” that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck with Senator Joe Manchin. Congressional liberals have been balking, fearing the accord will hurt the environment more than it helps. But instead of opposing reform, liberals should recognize that some fix is essential if only to prove that a Democratic House, Senate, and White House can tackle our most significant threats.
Sen. Schumer, prioritize confirming judges this fall (Guest Opinion by Joel Dodge & Travis Hunsberger)
Joel Dodge, a Central New York native, is a public interest attorney, policy adviser, and Columbia Law School director. He serves as chair of the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, New York Lawyer Chapter. Travis Hunsberger is a law student at Syracuse University College of Law, and is president of its student chapter of the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy.
We Need a Medium-Term Plan for Our Energy Supply
Americans are feeling the squeeze of record-high gas prices. The average price of a gallon of gas in the United States is , with little sign of significant easing on the horizon. And that's in turn driving up inflation for all goods that are transported using fossil fuels. This is partly a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions levied against Putin's regime, which has shrunk the global supply of oil.
Should Democrats compromise on the Child Tax Credit?
The expanded Child Tax Credit wasn't supposed to be a one-and-done program. Weeks after he took office, Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan funded an American child allowance for one year - but the program's advocates all expected it to be extended beyond 2021. Monthly checks to families lifted 3 million children out of poverty, and the program looked poised to become Biden's signature stamp on the welfare state - assuming Congress extended it.
Congress must renew Child Tax Credit to fight child poverty in Syracuse (Guest Opinion by Joel Dodge)
Joel Dodge, a Central New York native, is a public interest attorney, policy adviser, and Columbia Law School director. He serves as chair of the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, New York Lawyer Chapter. Syracuse received an unfortunate distinction last month: It has the highest child poverty rate in the country.
How To Save the Child Tax Credit - and Build Back Better
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is in deep trouble. Negotiations with pivotal fiftieth Senate vote Joe Manchin ran into a ditch this week, effectively shelving the bill until 2022 at best. Mixed reports have suggested that Manchin particularly objects to extending the Biden Child Tax Credit.
How Sen. Schumer can protect healthcare from the Supreme Court (Guest Opinion by Joel Dodge)
In this June 29, 2020 file photo, the Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. AP Joel Dodge, a Central New York native who now lives in New York City, is a public interest attorney, law school lecturer and policy adviser. He serves on the board of the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, New York Lawyer Chapter.
Opinion: What the Biden administration can do to fight child poverty
Suraj Patel is an attorney and lecturer at New York University. He most recently ran for US Congress in New York City in what was the closest primary election in the 2020 cycle in a race marked by a breakdown in counting votes by mail during the pandemic. He worked as a campaign aide to President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and as a part-time aide for the Obama White House.
There’s Another Way for Joe Biden to Expand Health Care: Medicare for Kids
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has proposed expanding Medicare to more Americans by lowering the eligibility age from 65 to 60. It was widely seen as a gesture toward supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and his signature policy, Medicare for All. Just days later, Sanders officially endorsed Biden for president. Biden’s support for expanding Medicare is noteworthy, if modest.
The Audacity of Hope in 2020
With voting in the 2020 presidential primary beginning in just a few days, many Democrats feel increasingly perplexed when it comes to discerning which candidate’s politics offers the surest path to the White House. Is it Joe Biden’s comforting bid for a third Obama administration term? Or Bernie Sanders’s tent-expanding political revolution? Or Elizabeth Warren’s thoroughly-planned promise of Big Structural Change?
How the GOP broke ObamaCare - and the federal judiciary
Just hours after ObamaCare's open enrollment ended for the year, a federal court of appeals threw the law into legal jeopardy based on a far-fetched lawsuit. Once again, the wellbeing of millions of people has been imperiled by the caucus of conservative federal judges intent on working hand-in-glove with Republican politicians to roll back universal health care in America. The latest lawsuit, Texas v.
The Training Wheels Theory of Obamacare’s Individual Mandate
We could get a decision any day now from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on whether the entire Affordable Care Act has been rendered unconstitutional by the 2017 Republican tax law. While we wait, it’s worth lifting up a novel argument in defense of the ACA offered in court by the insurance lobby: that the individual mandate operated as little more than a set of training wheels to get the law up and running.
What if Obamacare’s individual mandate is still secretly alive?
Obamacare’s much-besieged individual mandate lived a short, contentious life. Requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance from 2014 through 2018, the mandate survived a direct Supreme Court challenge in 2012 before it even took effect, and then another indirect court attack in 2015. It survived a torrent of repeal attempts by congressional Republicans, only to finally be unceremoniously slain as a budgetary gimmick in the GOP’s 2018 reconciliation tax bill.
Could the Constitution’s deal with slavery could doom Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax?
I’ve written before about the claims that Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax violates the Constitution. The New York Times’s 1619 Project gives occasion to hone in on the history of slavery lurking in the background of that constitutional debate. Four hundred years after the first slave ships arrived upon American shores, the long arm of American slavery still exerts itself in unexpected ways.
The Supreme Court’s Pretext Predicament in the Age of Trump
The Supreme Court’s Pretext Predicament in the Age of Trump By Joel Dodge | Center for Reproductive Rights Last week, newly discovered evidence blew up the Trump administration’s cover story in the Supreme Court for why it added a citizenship question to the 2020 census. That’s just the latest example of harmful government policies being backed up by pretextual justifications meant to obscure policymakers’ true motivations.
What Democrats Can Learn From Pete Buttigieg
The upstart candidate is showing liberals how to reclaim the language of freedom. April 25, 2019 | 6:00 AM The surprising momentum of Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has given a boost to an important but overlooked liberal project: taking back the rhetoric of freedom from decades of conservative domination.
The cruelty is the talking point: Trump’s war on refugees
At a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last week, President Trump attacked people seeking asylum in the United States. Falsely claiming that they want “amnesty,” Trump mused that asylum-seekers were being coached by immigration lawyers to say “I’m very afraid for my life,” he mocked, adding, “then I look at the guy, he looks like he just got out of the ring, he’s the heavyweight champion of the world.” “It’s a big fat con job,” he lambasted.
Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax, and constitutionalizing the progressive agenda
Last week, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiled a new proposal to levy a wealth tax on the ultra-rich. Beyond the merits of the policy, Warren’s proposal is a fitting reminder to progressives that we need to begin the work of getting the Constitution on our side, now. Under Warren’s plan, Americans with over $50 million in total assets would pay a 2 percent annual wealth tax on assets over that amount, and 3 percent on assets over $1 billion.
The case for a public option for New York – Joel Dodge – Medium
New York finally has a Democratic trifecta controlling its state government. Last week’s elections swept Democrats into power in New York’s State Senate, months after grassroots voters picked off members of the chamber’s so-called “Independent Democratic Caucus” who had been blocking their own party from majority control for years. This gives Democrats control over New York’s Senate, Assembly, and governor’s mansion — a feat they’ve maintained for only three whole years since World War II.
Beyond the backlash – Joel Dodge – Medium
One way of viewing American history — and in fact, the entire American project — is as the steady (if uneven) expansion of human dignity. It has happened in fits and starts, and never without a fight, but the story of the last two-and-a-half centuries of American history has been the persistent march toward more dignity for more people. The fight for dignity fueled the founding of our country and the revolutionaries who overthrew British rule to demand the self-determination of self-government.
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