{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.armstrong.senate.gov/armstrong-on-535-news-its-time-to-do-whats-right-for-the-country/", "Armstrong on 535 News: It\u2019s Time to Do What\u2019s Right for the Country", "2026-09-16", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "Senate", "OK", "Alan Armstrong", "A000383", "www.armstrong.senate.gov", "armstrong", "https://www.armstrong.senate.gov/news/media-center/", "scraper", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:\n\nSeptember 17, 2026\n\nCONTACT:\n\nChrissy Harbin, Miranda Dabney\n\nArmstrong on 535 News: It\u2019s Time to Do What\u2019s Right for the Country\n\nARMSTRONG CALLS FOR BIPARTISAN COURAGE TO FIX BROKEN FEDERAL APPROVAL PROCESSES ACROSS RENEWABLE, MINING, AND OIL & GAS SECTORS\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Senator Alan Armstrong (R-OK) appeared on the Capitol Hill-focused 535 News this week to urge immediate congressional action on federal permitting reform. Drawing from his decades of experience as an engineer and later the CEO of the Williams Companies, Armstrong outlined how bureaucratic gridlock and endless judicial appeals continue to undermine American energy independence, AI development, and long-term economic growth.\n\nDuring the interview, Armstrong emphasized that permitting reform is not an issue tailored to a single industry, but a national imperative that affects all forms of domestic energy and infrastructure development \u2013 ranging from transmission lines and critical mining material to domestic natural gas pipelines and traditional energy infrastructure.\n\nKEY EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW\n\nOn the universal scope of permitting reform across all energy sectors:\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s not one form of energy. It\u2019s everything. It\u2019s renewables not being able to get connected into markets that need that power. It\u2019s pipelines not being able to displace fuel oil and coal, which is so much more expensive and so much more emissions. There are mines that we desperately need here in the U.S. to be able to continue to not have to import it from sources that are not so friendly to us\u2026 The focus of permitting reform should not be to try to select what energy source we\u2019re going to use; it should make it simpler and with great confidence in being able to get a permit if you go through the process.\u201d\n\nOn how states arbitrarily block interstate projects under Sec. 401 of the Clean Water Act:\n\n\u201cNobody is asking for, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s lower the environmental protections.\u2019 That is not what any of these bills are about. They\u2019re simply about bringing certainty and a set of standards\u2026 Today, a state is not bound by those. A state can come up with whatever rules they want to on the fly. And so, if you have a pipeline that\u2019s going through multiple states, and a state says, \u2018Well, what am I getting out of this?\u2019 And it becomes popular to stop it because the NGOs come in and want to have something to fight about\u2026 it\u2019s completely arbitrary as to whether a state\u2019s going to issue you the 401 certificate.\u201d\n\nOn the need for judicial reform and fixing regulatory uncertainty:\n\n\u201cThe bill takes on things like judicial reform, because one of the primary things that people can\u2019t afford is to get caught up in litigation\u2026 I personally sat in a situation where we had a billion-dollar pipeline that we had spent four and a half years getting the permit done. Got the permit. It was up and running for 9 months, and a court came in and vacated a FERC certificate\u2026 You can\u2019t have projects that are up and running, you went through all the law required, you went through an entire EIS process, and somebody comes up with something that they didn\u2019t raise during the EIS process and raises it after the fact, holding the project up for 3.7 years.\u201d\n\nOn why existing big energy incumbents benefit from gridlock while America falls behind:\n\n\u201cA lot of people think, \u2018Well, duh, you were a pipeline executive, and so you want to come talk about permitting reform.\u2019 Actually, the incumbent big companies, like the company that I was the CEO for, this has been a bounty to make it difficult to build when you already own a lot of the critical infrastructure. It just makes your infrastructure more and more valuable\u2026 But long-term, our country is not going to be the great country that we\u2019ve all enjoyed\u2026 We have another round of big infrastructure that needs to be built here to support things like AI and modern manufacturing. And if we can\u2019t get it built here, we will fall behind.\u201d\n\nOn the need for courage and integrity in the Senate:\n\n\u201cI hope that people will stand tall to the political courage it takes to do what\u2019s right for our country\u2026 I wish that there was much more focus on what\u2019s good long-term for the country, even if it\u2019s to somebody\u2019s own political peril to get the right thing done. This is one of those circumstances where people know it\u2019s the right thing.\u201d", 1, "2026-09-24T10:30:22Z", "2026-09-24T10:31:42Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.armstrong.senate.gov/armstrong-on-535-news-its-time-to-do-whats-right-for-the-country/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7365212552249432, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}