By Alex Cameron, Griffin Media
From the moment he arrived in late March to serve the remaining 9 months of Markwayne Mullin’s unexpired term, Alan Armstrong has made it clear his goal is to help Congress pass meaningful permitting reform. The former Williams Companies CEO believes, in terms of energy infrastructure, the United States has fallen behind its competitors, largely because it’s become too difficult, he says, for companies to obtain the necessary permitting to build anything.
In his first Senate floor speech two weeks ago, Sen. Armstrong began:
“Mr. President, for generations, Americans understood that building our critical infrastructure was not a partisan cause. It was a national responsibility.
“Previous generations built the power plants, pipelines, highways, transmission lines, and mining sites that raised our standard of living, enabled the growth of our economy, protected our national security, and expanded opportunity across this country.
“The generations before us were builders and their efforts gave us the great nation we often take for granted today. They understood that large-scale infrastructure was not merely a collection of projects. It was the backbone of national prosperity.
“That broad consensus built out the most advanced infrastructure of its time, delivering affordable energy and economic growth. Over time, America showed that we did not have to choose between a strong economy or a cleaner environment. We could achieve both because we had the confidence to build and innovate.
“Today, however, we have moved away from that spirit of national purpose. Instead of building for the future, we are increasingly living off what previous generations were willing to imagine, finance, and construct. We have been relying on the fruits of their labor for decades. And today, we are beginning to see the harsh realities of infrastructure that is too aged and insufficient to support the next wave of growth.
In an interview last week, Sen. Armstrong (R-OK) spoke with Griffin Media Washington Bureau Chief Alex Cameron about his ongoing efforts to pass permitting reform legislation:
ARMSTRONG: “We rolled out our bill here about three weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago now, and the bill really is the broadest, most comprehensive action to date on permitting reform. We were benefited by a lot of good work that’s been done in the House, but all in singular bills, and [it] was no small feat to make those come in together into one comprehensive bill. But it is absolutely the best piece that’s out there right now and very meaningful on permitting reform. So we were able to roll that out. It addressed things like mining, addressed transmission for renewables—transmission, generally, but obviously, you know, critical today to connecting renewables power, hydro power. Everybody that’s affected by the ‘do’ loop that our current environmental permitting process cause was really represented well in this bill. And as a result of that, I think the most important thing…was that we had such a broad sector of anybody that’s involved in big energy infrastructure and mining infrastructure, which really has to get done if our country is going to continue to be great. We followed that up with a floor speech—and really, the focus of the floor speech was, how do you stand against something that doesn’t erode at all the environmental protections that we have for our country, but really takes out all of the risk and—doesn’t take it out, I would say it reduces dramatically, the risk, the litigation, the redo process that goes on in the permitting process today. So, effectively lowers both the cost and the time to get critical infrastructure installed for our country, but does not reduce the environmental protection. So it doesn’t cost taxpayers anything, lowers people’s utility bills long term, and makes our country more competitive. And, so really, the questions being posed there is, like, who would oppose this? Like, why would anybody in their right mind oppose this? The only people that might oppose that obviously is our enemies, like China, Russia obviously would oppose it, maybe trial attorneys that make all the money doing the ‘sue and settle’ processes that are in current environmental permitting process today, [which] allows and actually just actually almost, you know, just makes it a very fertile ground for the sue and settle process, which says, ‘wow, there’s 2 or $3 billion project there, if I can find a way to stop that, it’s probably worth a lot for them to pay me, to make me go away, even though I really don’t have any legitimate issues.’ And there’s a lot of that that goes on today, which, by the way, you might think is just bad against the big energy company or the big company that’s installing that infrastructure. I can tell you firsthand where that really lands — it lands in higher utility bills across our country, and it holds back the speed at which our country can compete worldwide. So, I’m really excited about getting the bill introduced. Really excited to have a broad sector of industry, not just oil and gas, not just the pipeline industry, but really a broad sector of the players that have to—that rely on being able to get a permit and actually be able to build and operate off that permit, the people that make our lives better as a country and, and actually help us supply our allies around the world. So again, there’s just no reason anybody, from my perspective, that’s really interested in America being great, regardless of which side of the aisle you’re on and regardless of the balance between environment and our progress in our country—the bill does not in any way sacrifice the environmental protections we’ve all come to expect.”
…on your message to people who might be skeptical that environmental protections won’t be compromised by removing barriers to permitting approval:
ARMSTRONG: “Well, I would say, you know, come here and spend some time in the federal government and you probably wouldn’t have that same perspective. You would realize that there’s a lot of things done here that don’t add value to either one side of that equation, but just cost time and money and delays and risk in the permitting process. It’s perfectly okay in a permitting process to say, ‘No, you can’t do it that way. Done. Figure out another way.’ There’s nothing wrong with that. Companies aren’t opposed to that. What they’re opposed to is spending a decade being told yes, no, maybe yes, no, maybe…only to have invested hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars in that process, and in some cases being issued a permit, spend the money and then get told their permit isn’t valid, after the fact, by a court. So, that’s what kills investment. If you think about the next company that comes along and saw the person before them get a permit jerked, and you go to a boardroom and say, ‘Hey, I got a good idea, let’s try that again.’ What do you think the expected return is going to be for a project like that, if there’s that much risk added to it. And, again, people feel good about themselves, like they’re, you know, beating up on the big bad energy company and stalling that progress. But in reality, all they’re really doing is driving up costs for Americans.”
…on the likelihood of being able to get this legislation across the finish line in the time remaining for the 119th Congress:
ARMSTRONG: “Yeah, I think that’s a challenge. I mean, we’re in this environment ahead of the midterms. There’s a lot of noise. We’ve got a lot of things, you know, that are standing in the way of addressing important issues like this. And there’s a lot of competition for, you know, the time on the floor remaining ahead of the midterm elections. One. Two, I would say Leader Schumer seems to be very fixated on shutting down the government and making that an issue right now, and very seems very fixated on seeing nothing positive get done here ahead of the midterms. And so don’t take that as, like, here’s this partisan Republican, you know, coming at this. That’s just a fact. That is, if you ask me what are the risk of getting this done, I would say Leader Schumer’s lack of interest in letting anything get done. And a potential shutdown of the government and all the things that go with that are probably some of the things that practically stand in the way of getting this—because there are a lot of moderate Democrats who understand how important it is that we get this bill done in this Congress.”
Alex Cameron is Griffin Media’s Washington Bureau Chief, reporting from our nation’s capital on issues that impact Oklahomans. An award-winning journalist, Alex first joined the News 9 team in 1995, and his reporting has taken him around the world, covering stories in Bosnia, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Seattle, New York and Ukraine.