Politics & Power Quote by Sherwood Boehlert

The line lands like a rebuke to a familiar Washington maneuver: turn a moment of public pain at the pump into political permission to do what industry wanted anyway. Boehlert’s “yet another vote” is doing quiet but important work. It signals fatigue, not just disagreement, framing the legislation as part of a repetitive pattern rather than a serious new solution. The phrase invites listeners to see the bill as recycled lobbying, not emergency governance.

The engine of the quote is its accusation of pretext. “High oil prices” aren’t treated as a policy problem to solve but as an “excuse” to solve something else: loosen rules and sweeten the deal for refiners. That word choice casts proponents as opportunists, exploiting anxiety to smuggle in deregulatory wins. “Weaken environmental protections” and “legislative gifts” are paired to collapse any distinction between regulatory rollbacks and corporate favoritism. It’s not merely misguided policy; it’s a transfer of power and benefit upward.

Contextually, this fits the recurring post-shock script of U.S. energy politics: price spikes (often tied to global events, refinery capacity constraints, or market dynamics) trigger calls to streamline permitting and relax safeguards, with environmental review cast as red tape. Boehlert’s intent is to deny the moral cover of crisis politics. “Misguided in the extreme” is unusually blunt for a legislator, a rhetorical choice that tries to raise the cost of bipartisan complacency: if you vote yes, you’re not pragmatic, you’re complicit in a con.