By Randy Krehbiel, the Tulsa World
Alan Armstrong went to Washington as Oklahoma’s temporary U.S. senator with one task.
Indications are, he’s trying to do everything he can to complete that during his eight months in Congress.
Armstrong on Thursday introduced legislation to revamp federal permitting procedures for pipelines, electric transmission and mining, one day after a sort of permitting reform pep rally in Washington that included almost a dozen members of Congress, more than 100 energy and industrial leaders, and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Stitt recruited Armstrong to complete former U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s term for this very reason. And while permitting reform and The American Energy and Mineral Infrastructure Act of 2026 may sound kind of snoozy, they actually connect to very current — literally — issues.
“We have got to make sure that as demand for electricity grows, we aren’t constrained, but that we have abundance available so that people can depend on it,” Armstrong told the Wednesday audience.
In other words, anyone worried about rising utility rates or even the availability of electricity because of the sudden arrival of large-load users such as data centers and, in Oklahoma’s case, a giant aluminum smelter, should be concerned about the permitting process’s cost in time and money.
“To get where we want to be in five years, we have to add another California to the grid,” Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso said.
Fifteen New York City peak loads in the next four years is how Ray Long, CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, put it.
“We’ve never built that much before. Ever,” Long said. “It can be done. There’s enough in the wings that’s been proposed … (but) if it’s taking seven years to permit transmission — and in some cases 17, 19 years — we’re not going to get there.”
As former CEO and current executive chairman of Williams Cos., Armstrong has a lot of practical experience on this. The events of Wednesday and Thursday suggest he has put it to use pulling together concerned parties in and out of Congress.
“I think this is the single bipartisan issue being considered by Congress right now that can add the most value of anything we’re looking at today as a country,” he said Wednesday.
Stitt has said one of the things he’s learned from his time as chairman of the National Governors Association is that Democratic and Republican leaders alike are frustrated by a federal permitting process that can easily last years if not decades.
“We want to be a country that builds things,” said Vermont Democratic Sen. Peter Welch. “We have fights … about climate issues. We have battles about the right fuel source. We have battles about where projects should go. But let’s have those and get them ended and resolved so we can make a decision, yes or no.”
An indication of the interest in the issue, and of Armstrong’s work on it since he arrived two months ago, may be the extent to which his colleagues and interested parties turned out on Wednesday, and their comments about Armstrong. He has several Senate co-sponsors, including fellow Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford.
“He has been laser focused on this,” said Barrasso. “Most people in the Senate are focused like a disco ball.”
As the name and subject suggests, the bill’s text is 83 pages of fairly dense and technical jargon.
“This is not a messaging bill,” Armstrong said.
The upshot, though, is that it seeks to cut down on overlapping authorities among federal agencies, limits grounds and time frames for protests, minimize state influence on the permitting process and restricts court actions.
One area of particular concern, it was said Wednesday, is the revoking of issued permits based on changes in the federal administration or late judicial action.
In his comments Wednesday, Stitt said Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota told him he thought permit reform could be enacted this year if Stitt appointed the right person to carry the issue.
“We’ve been talking about this for a long time. Generations,” said Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. “And Alan Armstrong comes into the Senate … like a man on a mission, ‘I’ve got one thing that I want to do, and I have very limited time.
“The fact you all are crowded into this room today is evidence of some of the momentum that I think you, Sen. Armstrong, have helped to coalesce,” said Murkowski.