Leadership Quote by Paul Gillmor

Gillmor’s line is a small, tidy act of political jujitsu: it indicts Washington while gently absolving the speaker for not fixing it yet. “We haven’t had a good energy policy…for decades” isn’t just a complaint about gasoline prices or power plants. It’s a rebuke of institutional drift, a reminder that energy in the U.S. has often been treated less as a long-term infrastructure project than as a recurring campaign issue and a lobbying battlefield.

The phrasing matters. “Good energy policy” is strategically undefined, allowing everyone to hear their own version of good: cheaper fuel, cleaner air, energy independence, fewer regulations, more domestic drilling, more renewables. By refusing specifics, Gillmor invites consensus on the diagnosis (failure) without triggering immediate disagreement over the cure. The time span “for decades” is also doing work: it stretches blame across administrations and parties, converting a partisan problem into a national habit.

Then comes the turn: “and we’re trying to get one.” That “trying” is both humility and cover. It signals effort without promising results, a classic way to manage expectations in a policy arena where any durable solution requires trade-offs voters dislike and donors often resist. Subtext: the system is stuck, but don’t punish us for the gridlock; we inherited it, and progress is slow by design.

Contextually, this fits an era when energy policy was increasingly framed by shocks (price spikes, foreign dependence, climate pressure) rather than coherent planning. Gillmor’s intent is to sound sober and forward-moving while naming the failure broadly enough to keep the coalition intact.