Time for the Alan Armstrong edition of Mitchell Talks Energy Podcast with Jerry Bonen. I'm Scott Mitchell and we're just, we're not joking. Good morning, Mr. Every time I hear his name, I want to go Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy, you know. Anyway, I digress.
What a couple of weeks, right? I mean, just in the energy field, it's just wild. Have you seen anything like this recently?
No. This has been quite a week. You know, Mark Wayne Mullen and today as we talk about this, he should be attending his first cabinet meeting at the White House as the director of Homeland Security. Of course, his replacement, Alan Armstrong, the gentleman that we've been highlighting for the past year or more since you did the interview with him when he became the executive chairman of Williams Companies after he had been the successful CEO for some time.
Do you remember we had people talking to us because we talk frequently and when we started talking transmission about three years ago when we were talking a lot about Rover, right, in transmission.
We haven't heard that name in a while.
But then we started talking about permitting reform. I cannot tell you how many times this week I've had people go, 'You guys have been talking about this, but I never understood it until now.' It's only the most important thing that's out there. And this is all against the backdrop of what's happening in that little strait, in that Gulf over there right off the coast of some country.
Yeah. Well, people are learning about transportation of energy this week, huh?
Yes, they have. I mean, just a whole number of things. Yeah. It's called the movement of energy, the flow of oil, the flow of electrical power.
And to do that, you have to have permits. And you know, the focus from the media has been, and I watched when we watched the Governor Stitt presser and people were asking questions and bless their heart. I mean, it's in a technical area, you know, what sort of permits are you going to do while you're in the Senate? And now Senator Armstrong says, 'Well, that's what FERC is.' And I know people were scratching their head going, 'What FERC?'
Yeah. So, we only do that on a weekly basis. But let's start with the first, you know, by last Saturday, we knew it started to emerge that Alan Armstrong, the former CEO and now executive chairman, well, I guess not today that position, was going to be the replacement temporarily for Senator Mullen. And this was Governor Stitt's introduction this week of now Senator Armstrong. 'He's a strong business leader who understands the power of free markets and limited government. He spent his career fighting for Oklahoma's energy industry and providing affordable, reliable energy to all of America.'
So that was what the governor had to say. Interestingly enough, he brought up the term permitting reform and immediately after the now Senator Armstrong took the podium and talked about what his agenda was going to be.
It's really kind of hard to say no to an opportunity to go serve when the state's given you so much to my family for three generations and now five with my grandkids. And so this state is very special to me and the last thing I would want to do is be sitting around complaining about what other people are not willing to step up and do and try to make our country great and continue to drive better and better policies that allow us to take advantage of our natural resources around the country and be able to connect it to the consumers that deserve the choice and let them be making the choice for affordable energy.
So right now the Capitol Press Corps is going, 'What the heck is permitting reform?'
Yeah, it's important, Jerry.
Well, okay, we'll put it down on a level that maybe non-energy followers might understand. If you go to Oklahoma City and you want to build a new garage or make an addition to your home, the permits you have to go through to do that can be almost daunting and you know it takes time to do that and to get the permits and to have a building inspector out there and all of that. This is kind of, but okay, relate that to wanting to drill on federal lands or wanting to build a major energy project such as a pipeline. It's the permitting that allows you to do that and you have to meet the standards of the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management, perhaps any number of federal agencies. That's called permitting and it takes time. You just don't go, 'I think I'll go build a data center over here and power it with natural gas with this power plant.' You have to get the permits to win the approval.
You know, last summer when I did in July, which when I interviewed Alan Armstrong as he had become the chairman, he told me in that conversation that the Williams Company spent more money on lawyers and permitting than what they spent on steel for pipelines.
Yeah. That would be in most people's book absurd, right?
Exactly. It takes 10 years to get a pipeline. And of course the aspect of NESE with the Northeastern pipeline going into New York City. I've told the story 10 times on television this week, but for our audience, I'll tell it again. They had to move hundreds of trucks, hundreds of trucks across Manhattan bridges to keep the pressure up in Manhattan for natural gas. Trucks on bridges, 18-wheelers, because a certain governor, Cuomo, had used some water regulations, permits, to keep from building pipelines into New York. Now, for folks that don't like pipelines, we'll lose you there, but I'm not sure that 18-wheelers aren't more dangerous going across those bridges 500 times a day, apparently, from what Mr. Armstrong said back then than having pipelines go in there. I, you know, environmentalists don't like pipelines. They also don't like diesel trucks. And by the way, diesel's going up now, adding to your home. Five bucks a gallon roughly.
Yeah. It's interesting. There's been a lot of rumors about why the governor went to Washington, yada yada yada. But he did have an interesting thing in his presser this week. This is what he said when he was asked why he picked Alan Armstrong.
But I went to DC and I met with the president. I met with the leadership of the Senate, John Thune, and asked, 'What do you need? What do you need in this appointment? What would be helpful?' And what I got back was, 'Hey, we need someone that can help work across the aisle to get permitting reform done.' This is a real shot. And I've been working on that from the National Governor's Association, putting together a team of Democrat colleagues, Republican colleagues, we're all Americans. And from the governor's perspective, whether you're in Maryland or you're in Connecticut or you're in Oklahoma or Texas, we know to get transmission lines done, to get new projects done, we can't have pendulum swings. We can't have Obama killing the Keystone pipeline and then Trump bringing it back and then Biden killing it again and then Trump bringing it back. I explain it to the people this way. These companies, it's like if you're building your dream home. Let's say you guys are building your dream home. You and your spouse have saved and you went and got a permit from the city. You went and got financing from the bank. You started building your home. You're 80% complete. It's dried in and you're actually putting your final kitchen together and you're getting everything delivered and the new mayor gets elected and pulls your permit. That's what's happening right now in permitting. And so I just think we can't have a country that picks and chooses. We have to, when you do everything right and you get those permits, we can't let a new administration come in and kill projects, right? And so to me it was just, it was just like who would be the best person to serve? And to be quite frank with you, I thought of Allen on my own. I thought who is the best guy that's worked across the aisle that's been a forward thinker in this. And then I mean I think there were some other people that told me that you ought to think about Allen. And obviously we had other great candidates that understand oil and gas. You know, we have great leadership in the state with Harold Hamm and Larry Nichols and really titans of the industry that understand this deal, but I didn't think anybody knew it like the pipeline side of it. And so, to me, it was just a non-political pick. It was the pick that I thought was going to serve our country the best, serve Oklahoma the best at a critical time when we need to get this through. And this is, and then Allen will tell you this too, that this issue normally people punt it. They punt hard issues because it's not right in front of you. 'Oh, let somebody else handle that. That's not going to make a difference.' But if we don't fix this, we're going to lose ground to China and we're going to lose ground to other countries that are building electricity generation like this. And whether you believe in wind or whether you believe in oil or natural gas or whether you believe in transmission lines, we need permitting reform done. And this is a great opportunity. And so when Thune told me that, I immediately went to who would be the best person to help the Senate get that across the finish line. And I think it's clearly Alan Armstrong.
So John Thune saying he needed somebody to help him with permitting reform.
Well, and Armstrong went on to say and explain he's had considerable experience in this and okay, so put this into, you know, I guess a realm that he only has seven months to serve. And if you think he's going to go in and wham bam, you know, get something done as a freshman US senator, it won't happen. But he can use his abilities and his knowledge of the energy industry to perhaps influence some members of the Senate or the House even, you know, that he knows what he's talking about and this is what is needed. I was impressed with his explanation on that when he made those comments.
Yeah, he did explain and here's a montage of clips talking to the Capitol press corps about first off energy, energy speak, right? There's just some things that the media, we've been saying for some time. It's not, this hasn't been a regular beat except for us for a very long time.
