Kentucky’s Governor Couldn’t Pass a Law. So He Built a Battery Belt.
How Andy Beshear used federal climate policy and executive authority to deliver for Kentuckians, without a single cooperative vote from his legislature.
This is part of an ongoing series on state and local Democratic leaders who are translating progressive values into specific, replicable policy. You can read the full series here.
In August 2025, the first electric vehicle battery rolled off the assembly line at the BlueOval SK plant in Hardin County, Kentucky. It had taken four years to build. Four months later, a decision by President Trump would cost every one of the 1,600 workers their jobs.
The plant itself did not fail. Ford and its South Korean partner SK On had built it together as a joint venture to supply batteries for Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles. When the Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress eliminated the federal tax credit that made consumers willing to buy those vehicles, demand slowed, Ford dissolved the partnership, and Hardin County absorbed the loss.
What Democrats Built
In 2022, facing a post-COVID economy that had exposed decades of offshoring and industrial decline, the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act. It was an ambitious attempt to address two problems at once: begin the transition to a green economy and rebuild American manufacturing in the communities that had lost it.
The policy toolbox had several complementary parts. Production tax credits made domestic battery manufacturing economically attractive for the first time. A Department of Energy loan program provided the capital at scale. Domestic content requirements tied those incentives to American jobs and American factories. A consumer tax credit made electric vehicles affordable enough to drive demand for what the factories produced. Kentucky was one of five states that captured more than $10 billion in investment. The factories rising across Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, and the Carolinas came to be known as the battery belt.
What Beshear Did With It
Kentucky has voted Republican in every presidential election since 2000, and Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. Kentucky Republicans had their own theory of economic development: reduce the tax burden on businesses, limit regulation, and let the private market drive growth. Beshear’s theory was different. He believed a coordinated strategy that targeted specific industries and anchored them with a trained workforce would deliver jobs that the market alone would not produce in communities that had been waiting decades for them.
The IRA gave him the means to prove it. A federal policy environment that made Kentucky attractive to manufacturers who needed to build in America to qualify for the credits did not require a single vote in Frankfort. Beshear took full advantage of the opportunity.
He used every executive tool available to close the deals. The state put up a $250 million forgivable loan to BlueOval SK, paid upfront from state funds, to be forgiven when the company hit its employment targets. The state built a workforce training center at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College, designed around the plant’s specific technical requirements. He did the same with a second major battery investment in Bowling Green and maintained direct relationships with manufacturers across the state. By 2026, his administration had secured more than $13 billion in electric vehicle-related investment, part of more than $50 billion in total private investment announced since he took office, the largest economic development numbers in Kentucky history.
He also knew how to talk about it. Beshear focused on what Kentuckians could see and touch: the jobs in Hardin County, the workers who would fill them, the community that would grow around the plant. He leads with people and ends with people. That is how a policy built around climate and manufacturing becomes comprehensible to voters in one of the reddest states in the country.
When the Window Closed
President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress eliminated the consumer tax credit for electric vehicles as part of the administration’s budget legislation in 2025. Ford and SK On dissolved their joint venture. The layoff notices arrived just before Christmas. One worker found out at a movie with her husband, who also worked at the plant, through calls from family. It was also the last day the couple could back out of buying a house. With no job, they lost their chance at a new home.
Beshear kept moving. He made sure Kentuckians knew that their congressman, a Republican who represented the district containing three electric vehicle plants and chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee, had voted for the legislation that eliminated the credits those plants depended on. Then he used the relationship he had built with Ford. On April 30, 2026, Ford announced a new $2 billion investment at the same Hardin County site, creating 2,100 jobs in energy storage manufacturing. The plant will reopen in 2027. The laid-off workers can apply for the new positions.
The Lesson
Federal policy creates windows. The governors who are ready when the window opens are the ones whose communities feel the results. Beshear was ready, and he delivered the largest economic development numbers in Kentucky history without a single cooperative vote from his state legislature.
Kentucky is one of the clearest examples of what federal Democratic ambition looks like when a state executive knows how to capture it, and what it costs when one of those two things is removed. The IRA created the conditions. Beshear built the infrastructure to take advantage of them. When Congress eliminated the consumer tax credit, the workers in Hardin County paid the price.
What makes Beshear worth studying is not just the policy mechanism but how he stays centered on the needs of Kentuckians, in what he does, and in how he talks about it. He does not lead with ideology. He leads with Hardin County. The executive tools, the forgivable loan, the workforce training center, and the manufacturer relationships he maintained through disruption are in service of that. The results are specific enough to see and concrete enough to replicate.
The next installment looks at Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a different state, a different policy mechanism, and the same underlying argument. If you want to follow the series, all installments are collected here.
Endnotes
BlueOval SK begins production, August 2025: EV Infrastructure News, BlueOval SK Begins US EV Battery Production. https://www.evinfrastructurenews.com/ev-battery/ford-joint-venture-blueoval-sk-begins-us-ev-battery-production
Ford and SK On dissolve joint venture, 1,600 workers laid off, December 2025: Utility Dive, SK On Pivots to Stationary Energy Storage After Ford Joint Venture Ends. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ford-skon-dissolving-blueoval-sk-ev-battery-joint-venture/808012/
Worker learns of layoff at a movie, loses house purchase: Detroit News, Hundreds of Workers Set for Layoff as Ford Retools Battery Plant. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2026/02/11/blueoval-sk-battery-park-kentucky-layoffs-ford-battery-plant-stationary-energy-storage/88551376007/
Biden administration passes Inflation Reduction Act, 2022, goals and policy toolbox: U.S. Department of the Treasury, The Inflation Reduction Act: Progress and Impact. https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-inflation-reduction-act-progress-and-impact
Kentucky one of five states capturing more than $10 billion in IRA investment, battery belt: Ohio River Valley Institute, BlueOval SK Development Timeline. https://ohiorivervalleyinstitute.org/blueoval-sk-development-timeline/
BlueOval SK announced September 2021, $5.8 billion investment, 5,000 jobs: Louisville Courier Journal, Ford, SK On Bringing 5,000 Jobs to Kentucky With Massive Electric Vehicle Battery Park. https://www.aol.com/news/ford-sk-innovation-open-electric-110259436.html
$250 million state forgivable loan: Murray Ledger, About 1,600 to Be Laid Off as Ford Repurposes BlueOval SK for Energy Storage. https://www.murrayledger.com/news/about-1-600-to-be-laid-off-as-ford-repurposes-blueoval-sk-for-energy-storage/article_3fdd1773-73f3-4d29-b5e8-9ffc77027831.html
Workforce training center at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College: Z93 Country, 1,600 Workers to Be Laid Off at Kentucky Manufacturing Plant. https://z93country.com/archives/511550/state-news/
Beshear administration reaches $50 billion in investment, 70,000 jobs: Spectrum News 1, Gov. Beshear Announces Historic Job Growth in Kentucky. https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2026/05/20/economic-investments-record
One Big Beautiful Bill eliminates consumer EV tax credit, Beshear response: WUKY, BlueOval Layoffs Present a Challenge for Workers, State Supporters. https://www.wuky.org/wuky-news/2025-12-19/blueoval-layoffs-present-a-challenge-for-workers-state-supporters
Brett Guthrie, chair of House Energy and Commerce Committee: Spectrum News 1, Q&A With Republican U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky. https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/in-focus-shows/2026/02/16/brett-guthrie-on-in-focus
Ford announces $2 billion investment, 2,100 jobs, Hardin County, April 2026: Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, Gov. Beshear Joins Ford Motor