Success Quote by Jay Inslee

Inslee’s line is built like a shrug that doubles as a receipt. The setup nods to the mid-1970s - the oil shocks, gas lines, a country suddenly aware that energy policy isn’t abstract - and then slides into a deliberately plainspoken payoff: we set “ambitious goals,” and reality rewarded us. It’s not poetry; it’s a political instrument.

The intent is to make regulation sound less like constraint and more like a practical bet that paid off. By asking “What did we get?” Inslee borrows the cadence of a kitchen-table conversation, then answers with an unflashy but potent noun phrase: “a tremendous boost.” That’s the subtext doing its work. He’s trying to smuggle a larger climate argument through a smaller, historically verified story: standards don’t just cost industry money; they force innovation and deliver measurable gains.

Context matters because the 1970s are the canonical counterexample to today’s culture-war framing of climate policy. Fuel economy rules, whatever their controversies, are remembered as normal governance: government set targets, automakers adapted, consumers benefited at the pump. Inslee’s choice of “we” spreads ownership across the nation, softening partisan edges and implying continuity between past consensus and present necessity.

There’s also an implied rebuke to the doom loop of “it will hurt jobs” and “technology isn’t ready.” The quote’s quiet premise: we’ve already done this, under harder conditions, and it worked. The cynicism is gentle but real - if you want proof that ambitious policy can deliver, stop treating history like it’s optional reading.