ENB Pub Note: This article was originally posted on the Hill by Sen. Alan Armstrong. I am reaching out to him to get him on the podcast. We recommend reading The Hill.
I didn’t come to the Senate from politics — I came from the field. I started as an engineer in Oklahoma’s energy sector and eventually led a company building and maintaining critical infrastructure. That experience taught me a simple lesson: Energy abundance is meaningless if you can’t move it to where it’s needed.
Every time tensions rise in the Middle East, Washington sounds the alarm about high gasoline prices. Although these concerns are real, they often obscure a more fundamental truth: The biggest driver of high energy costs for many Americans isn’t foreign conflict; it is domestic failure.
The data illustrate this disconnect clearly. In Pennsylvania, one of the most prolific natural gas regions in the world, supply is abundant and inexpensive. However, just 120 miles away in Massachusetts, they pay 252 percent more than the national average. Consumers there might pay $9.70 per unit versus $2.75 nationally.
This disparity — the “Boston gap” — is not driven by global markets; it is the predictable outcome of failing to build the pipelines necessary to connect supply to demand.
On the West Coast, the consequences are even more pronounced. California has effectively isolated itself as an “infrastructure island,” disconnected from interstate crude and fuel networks. Consequently, more than 60 percent of its fuel supply comes from foreign imports, leaving it exposed to global volatility and gasoline prices more than 30 percent above the national average.
In fact, these self-imposed costs often exceed the impact of global instability itself. We see further proof of this dysfunction in West Texas, where electricity and natural gas prices sometimes turn negative because there isn’t enough transmission capacity to move surplus energy to higher-demand markets. We are simultaneously overproducing and under-delivering.
This is more than an economic issue — it is a national security concern. When regions are cut off from domestic supply, they are forced to rely on global markets and unstable foreign imports, making them more vulnerable to geopolitical shocks. Infrastructure is the bottleneck between abundant, low-priced energy and high utility bills.
My approach is straightforward. First, we must fix the abuse of Section 401 of the Clean Water Act by restoring its focus to legitimate water quality concerns. Second, we must end the “build it, then kill it” problem by ensuring courts cannot shut down projects after permits have been lawfully issued and construction is underway. Third, we should raise the bar for lawsuits by requiring clear evidence of real harm before a project can be blocked. These reforms would create predictable rules and make it easier to build projects affordably and at scale.
We cannot control every geopolitical risk, but we can decide whether our own policies amplify those risks or protect us from them. Fixing permitting is the most important step we can take to unlock investment, lower costs, and ensure that American energy reaches American consumers.
Alan Armstrong (R) is the junior U.S. senator from Oklahoma. He served as CEO and executive board chairman of Williams from 2011 to 2025.