Executive Chairman of the Board, Williams Companies Inc
Happy Trails Episode 8 -- A Conversation with Sen. Alan Armstrong about Permitting Reform
About Alan Armstrong
Senator Alan Armstrong (R-OK) has made permitting reform for energy and mineral infrastructure the central focus of his tenure since being appointed to the Senate in March 2026. He introduced the American Energy and Mineral Infrastructure Act alongside Senators Rick Scott, Cynthia Lummis, Katie Britt, and James Lankford. In his inaugural Senate floor speech on July 16, 2026, Armstrong argued that the U.S. has abundant energy resources but lacks the infrastructure to deliver them, and he attributed this to a permitting process that he said creates litigation risk and uncertainty for investors. He cited his experience as CEO of Williams Companies, describing a project where a federal court vacated a pipeline certificate after the project was already operating, and another instance where a 120-mile pipeline was blocked by a state using Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. Armstrong has stated that the problem is not a lack of environmental protections but rather the process and litigation risk, and he has said his bill does not aim to diminish environmental standards. He has described the current system as "strangling" the country and called for Congress to show "political courage" to fix it. Armstrong has said he has no political ambition beyond his current seat and that his short, non-reelection term gives him freedom to focus on this issue. He has also expressed surprise at what he described as a focus by Democratic Party leadership on preventing productive outcomes, and he has said he considers himself "very moderate" and believes in putting country ahead of party.
Transcript (43 segments)
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Cynthia Lummis0:07
Well, welcome to this podcast for the Western Caucus in the US Senate. I'm Cynthia Lummis. I chair the Senate Western Caucus and I've really been looking forward to today's podcast because we are with Alan Armstrong, the new US Senator in the US Senate who is from the state of Oklahoma. And he comes to us in a very unusual way. So, welcome Senator Armstrong. It's wonderful to have you on our podcast. Can you tell us how you got here?
A
Alan Armstrong0:38
Yeah. Well, thank you. I was really excited to get to talk to Cynthia. You've been such a kind and considerate face since I showed up at Senate. Coming out of business, never having any political ambitions, never having any interest in being in the Senate. And then, you know, the governor of Oklahoma asked me to, and he has the right in Oklahoma on an interim basis to make an appointment. And so, Mark Wayne Mullins, who was in this seat, which was previously Senator Inhofe's seat. So he came into the seat and then he got called up to be the DHS secretary and then it was one of those things where it was kind of merry-go-round. Next thing I knew, I got a call from the governor saying, 'Hey, could you be in my office Monday morning?' And he said, 'Well, would you consider doing the Senate role?' And I was like, 'What?' I said, 'I'm sure I can find somebody a lot better qualified. I'll help you. I know I can help you find somebody who'd be really qualified to do this, but I'm honored you'd even ask, obviously.' But so that was a conversation like two or three weeks. I didn't hear much back. I gave him some names that I thought would be good. And when I told him that, he said, 'That's not what I asked you. I asked you if you'd be willing to do it if I asked you to.' Anyway, he then called me up on a Saturday. I think that was like maybe the 19th or 20th of March and said, 'Hey, can you be in Florida to meet with President Trump tomorrow at 1:00?' And so I said, 'Well, yeah, for what?' And so he, well, I want to introduce you to him about taking this role. So that was a Sunday and then it got announced on a Monday night and I got sworn in here then on Tuesday.
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Cynthia Lummis2:45
Yeah. Isn't it a whirlwind? I am so glad your governor was persistent with you and I'm so glad that you said yes because you bring such a unique background to the Senate and it's one that we need right now because your area of interest and expertise is permitting reform and that's something that now we're even seeing on a bipartisan basis is something that's sorely needed. So, tell us how because of your longstanding role with the Williams company, which is a huge highly respected Oklahoma based company that Wyoming people are very, very familiar with. But so are others in the West and all over the country. You were both president and CEO and then sort of head of the board of directors. Am I right?
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Alan Armstrong3:34
Right. Right.
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Cynthia Lummis3:35
Okay, tell us how based on that experience you came to view permitting as something you want to address.
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Alan Armstrong3:45
Yeah, you know, I actually started off as a field engineer for Williams back in 1986 and back then we could get stuff built. You know, it wasn't all that complicated. There were requirements, environmental requirements, but it really, you know, you could go and get stuff built. In fact, I spent a lot of my time in Wyoming, building out there in upstream of Reiner, Wyoming by Rollins, and building out some of the gathering and processing systems there in that area. And, you know, it just wasn't that hard to get stuff built. Over time, as I watched it, it just got crazier and crazier and harder and harder to build to the point where we want to fuss about high prices. We want to fuss about high gasoline prices in California. People want to fuss about high utility prices in New England. And yet, we have some of the lowest cost resources sitting there available, but we won't build the infrastructure. California, you know, kind of shut out everything, all fossil fuel. New England, particularly the governor of New York, shut down pipelines going across the state of New York to bring the lowest cost gas, not just in the nation, but in some areas the lowest cost gas in the world in Marcellus and Utica. And you're trying to get it into the New England states.
C
Cynthia Lummis5:14
Which is some of the highest in the wintertime, some of the highest price. It's only 120 miles in Wyoming speak. That's nothing.
A
Alan Armstrong5:21
Nothing. Yeah. And so 120 miles away, we've got some of the lowest cost gas, some of the highest price gas. People are livid about their utility bills. And it's all because we've got a permitting process that allows people to stop critical infrastructure like that. So, the home heating oil that they use in New England and is extremely high priced is something that you through the Williams company wanted to get to that market and save them all that money with clean burning natural gas, which is the cleanest burning hydrocarbon by far.
C
Cynthia Lummis6:01
Right?
A
Alan Armstrong6:01
And lower their costs and they said no. Right. And particularly the governor of New York said can't cross my state with your pipeline even though this was going through very rural areas that actually wanted the pipeline to come through the rural areas because they wanted access; in most those areas they're either burning fuel oil or propane and they wanted access, particularly the industries and the businesses wanted access to the low-cost natural gas. But in New York what you figure out pretty quickly is it doesn't really make any difference if you're upstate New York. The only voters that really dictate anything are downstate and Manhattan.
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Cynthia Lummis6:43
And so the poor folks in New York, not only do they not have access to that low-cost natural gas, there's tremendous gas reserves in the Marcellus that sit in New York and they've banned fracking in New York.
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Alan Armstrong6:59
They have. And so they've stopped themselves from being able to take — I love taking people up there and showing them when you drive around in that area. In Pennsylvania, you drive by and you see these beautiful farms and ranches with brand new fences, big brand new four-wheel John Deeres everywhere you look. Beautiful. I mean, just really, you know, Wow, these people are like this looks like Kentucky ranches around here. Exactly. And then you go right across the border and it is desolate and impoverished. It is because the people in Pennsylvania have had the benefit of getting the royalties off all of that gas in that area, and the governors and the politics in New York have been anti-fossil fuel and they've stopped — not just they're stopping access for other people to access the gas, but the landowners in that area are stopped from being able to get the royalties off the gas in that market.
C
Cynthia Lummis7:56
Yeah. So, you saw this firsthand. You were boots on the ground trying to help people in America. Yeah.
A
Alan Armstrong8:02
And couldn't get her done, right? And so it's just, you know, it's crazy some of the stuff. But I remember, I always kind of when I think about Wyoming, I think about when I first started working there and the last project that I was involved with there, which was the Overland Pass pipeline, which was a natural gas liquids pipeline that comes out of Kemmerer, actually starts all the way down in the Piceance and then comes up to Kemmerer and then across along I-80 and then south into Kansas. And that pipeline was held up for a year over studying to make sure we knew exactly where the three-toed jumping mouse
C
Cynthia Lummis8:48
Meadow jumping mouse.
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Alan Armstrong8:49
Oh, I know it well. I mean, I've never seen one because it's a subspecies. I don't — we never found one. We never found one, but we looked and looked and looked and looked for one.
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Cynthia Lummis8:59
I hear you.
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Alan Armstrong9:00
And so I'm — listen, I love the outdoors. I love wildlife. I love the fact that we work hard to protect our environment, but we can't exist as a nation and be competitive with other nations when we don't have balance to those decisions and we don't find ways to allow ourselves to mitigate that. Like, it wasn't like we were going to — nobody said, 'Hey, we found them.' It was just, 'Well, we need to study it further to make sure they're not here.'
C
Cynthia Lummis9:26
So, is where's the biggest bottleneck? Is it litigation? Is it time delays at the federal agency level? What's your —
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Alan Armstrong9:36
Everybody always thinks that it's the big bad federal agencies. And I will say that they are bureaucratic. I'm not going to say that they're speedy, but they're generally well-intended, effective agencies. The problem is that the litigation has forced all of these agencies to go, 'Oh my god, we're going to get sued. We better make sure we know exactly what's here.'
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Cynthia Lummis10:03
So, it's all the litigation that's on their heads.
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Alan Armstrong10:07
That forces them to behave that way. And that litigation comes out of folks like the Sierra Club and Delaware Riverkeeper and you name it. A lot of, you know, folks that get paid to pick fights basically. I mean, that's how they raise their money is picking fights. And that litigation though is really what slows things down. But you also have situations — in fact, Wyoming is no stranger to this — actually the 401 water quality certificate,
C
Cynthia Lummis10:36
Which is a state veto, right? It was supposed to be set up to make sure that a state had the ability to work with the Corps of Engineers on a clean water permit on the 404 permit. It was the state's right to go, 'Hey, we have these concerns that need to be dealt with.' Well, that's because there's no description around that. Like it doesn't say what the standards are for the clean water. It just says you get to sign off on saying that you're okay with it.
A
Alan Armstrong11:07
Well, that's just turned into a completely political veto. Stop the Millennium coal facility going out of state of Washington, which was a huge positive. And if you go back and read those denials, there's nothing in there about water quality. It's just 'we hate fossil fuels' and we —
C
Cynthia Lummis11:27
One would think the commerce clause would override this.
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Alan Armstrong11:31
Yeah. But it — because the process is — the interstate commerce is managed like the Natural Gas Act pipelines. The FERC oversees that or is supposed to. But over time, the states have decided that they're not going to be a part of that overall federal process and they're just going to do their own thing. And it is a political — if you're raising money, if you're Governor Hochul or you're Governor Cuomo in New York and you like, you've got this complete control.
C
Cynthia Lummis12:06
Yeah.
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Alan Armstrong12:07
And so it becomes a real political weapon.
C
Cynthia Lummis12:10
So what can we do about it as US senators?
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Alan Armstrong12:12
Yeah. So, you know, one of the bills, in fact, we're going to be introducing a bill next week that I'm really excited about. And what we think needs to happen, particularly with the 401 water quality certificate, is that it needs to be brought under the entire FERC process. So, today when we have an EIS, which believe me, I can't believe I remember when we first started having to do EIS and I thought this is going to be the death of our country. Like, this is crazy how much red tape this is. And now I'm sitting here, it's gotten so bad. I'm sitting here saying, can we put this other process in with the EIS? That's how crazy it's gotten. But at least we could have one process instead of multiple processes. So making sure that the 401 water quality certificate is forced to work alongside fish and wildlife, all the other considerations. So when you're planning a route, whether it's a transmission line or a pipeline, you choose this route based on all these other considerations, land owners, where they'd like to see it go. So all of that goes into kind of a big confab and everybody says, 'Well, I think it should be here and I think it should be here.' And eventually you settle on a route and whoever the lead agency stamps a certificate on it. But the states have said, 'No, no, no, no. We're going to wait until you get done with that and then we'll tell you.'
C
Cynthia Lummis13:42
Well, then you'll apply the veto, the big — and they can force you to go back to square one.
A
Alan Armstrong13:48
Oh, that's unreasonable. Right. And so, if you're back to square one, like where does that end? Right. Okay. So, what your bill, how would your bill address? Our bill would say that if all agencies, the state DEEQs, the feds, everybody has to be a part of the same process. You can't have your own after-the-fact separate process because it's completely untenable. You're going to always be in a do-loop.
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Cynthia Lummis14:16
So, that — where does when does the state weigh in and say we're okay with this? Or part of the EI — the environmental impact statement process — everybody gets a chance to weigh in and say we think it should be here, here's our concerns, here's how this company's addressed them or not addressed them. And then the FERC, like, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, whoever the lead agency is, when you're doing linear infrastructure, then they have the right to say, listen, Williams has done everything they possibly can on this, this is given all the other issues here, this is the best solution. Because you can't design a route that makes every single person happy.
A
Alan Armstrong14:55
Absolutely right. And so the problem with that overall process though, well, all we're saying — I mean, this is crazy to me that we can't even get this done. All we're saying is that the state 401 process should be part of the total process. It shouldn't be in its own orbit.
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Cynthia Lummis15:14
Well, I am so glad that the state of Oklahoma sent you here to help us with this because you have that boots on the ground knowledge from all your years with Williams. You know where the bottlenecks are. This sounds like a very logical bill. I'm going to call your office when we're done and see if I can sign on as a co-sponsor. Fantastic. And we're just so glad you're here because your law is unique in Oklahoma in that you cannot run.
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Alan Armstrong15:44
Right. Right.
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Cynthia Lummis15:46
For this position.
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Alan Armstrong15:47
And I have a big smile on my face as you say that.
C
Cynthia Lummis15:50
I'll bet. Now that you saw how hard it is, how many monkey wrenches are in the process here. But even though you're only here for one year, I got to say you really do bring some expertise to the Senate that we didn't have and that is sorely needed. And I'm just so pleased that your governor was tenacious in asking you. And I'm so glad you just gave up your life for 2026 and are willing to roll up your sleeves and work on this. You are just a great addition to the US Senate and I'm so glad you would join me today on the Western Caucus podcast.
A
Alan Armstrong16:32
Well, thank you. Wyoming has always been a special place to me. It's always been a big place for Williams and I've spent a ton of time there. Love the state. Love the people. People there are very much kind of a can-do people, much the way Oklahomans are, and I always think how similar the culture is. Always feel pretty at home when I'm with people from Wyoming. So, I'm really, really excited to get to be on the podcast today and so appreciate how welcoming and supportive you've been. So, thank you.
C
Cynthia Lummis17:05
Well, we're your wingman on this permitting stuff. So, count us in and again, thanks for joining us today.
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Alan Armstrong17:12
Thank you very much.
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Cynthia Lummis17:13
For the Western Caucus podcast. I'm Cynthia Lummis. Please join us next time.