Leadership Quote by Virgil Goode

The sentence is political duct tape: broad enough to cover any crack, sticky enough to hold a coalition together, and vague enough that no one can pin down what it actually commits to. Goode’s “However” signals a pivot from some cleaner, more singular energy vision to a pragmatic fallback. The key move is permission-giving. “It may occur” launders agency, as if energy policy is weather rather than a set of choices shaped by lobbying, regulation, and investment. That passive framing lets a politician nod at change without owning the consequences.

“Variety of fuel sources” is the patriotic euphemism for an all-of-the-above strategy, a phrase that reads like flexibility but often functions as a lifeline for incumbent industries. In the mid-2000s-era energy debate Goode lived in as a congressman, that usually meant reassuring coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear constituencies that they wouldn’t be abruptly displaced, while also leaving the door cracked for renewables without promising the spending or mandates that make them scale.

The subtext is cultural as much as economic: “support our lifestyles” treats high-consumption normalcy as nonnegotiable, turning demand reduction or structural change into an unspoken taboo. Then comes the applause line, “boost our economy,” which folds energy into a growth story voters are trained to trust. The rhetorical effect is to make continuity sound like realism. It’s not a vision; it’s a pressure-release valve, designed to defuse conflict by promising everyone a seat at the table, and no one a bill.