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00:00Senate reversed course on limiting President Trump's power in the Iran war in an effort to placate the president after
00:06an extremely tense lunch on Capitol Hill.
00:08Trump walked into the building and has already sparked frustration on his part and had a tense meeting, a tense
00:14luncheon there on Capitol Hill.
00:15Posted on social media he refused to sign a housing bill that was passed by a near unanimous vote until
00:20his voting act also passes Congress.
00:22Senator Alan Armstrong of Oklahoma was at that Senate Republican lunch with the president.
00:26And we asked him about the housing bill as well as the president's interactions with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
00:31I think that was obviously a surprise to everybody.
00:34And I think caught everybody off guard there a little bit.
00:39I think, you know, clearly the president's trying to make a strong statement about how important Save America Act is
00:46to him personally.
00:47And I think he certainly got his point across on that.
00:50There was this meeting that followed with the president.
00:52And I would love your readout on some what transpired there.
00:55We've heard that Senator Cassidy was the subject of a great deal of anger from the president.
00:59What was the mood in that room?
01:00What did you hear from the president about what he wants to have happen here for that bill to get
01:03signed into law?
01:06Yeah, you know, I think he just continues to express the importance of getting our voting here something that everybody
01:17can trust and be dependent on.
01:20And I think that's obviously very important to him.
01:24But, you know, I'm not going to make any comments on what exactly went on in the room.
01:29But obviously, that's very important to the president.
01:31He continues to press on that.
01:34But, you know, it's a private conversation for good reason.
01:40And I think we should have more, frankly.
01:43I think there ought to be more of those private conversations and working out differences rather than letting them work
01:49their way out into the public.
01:51You said the president got his point across that this voting act is really important to him.
01:55But this housing act was really important to Republicans, especially Republicans who are trying to run in tight races come
02:02the fall.
02:02Because one of the things that voters say over and over again when asked they're focused on is these kitchen
02:07table issues.
02:08And housing has gotten so expensive in this country.
02:11Are you disappointed that the bill didn't get passed?
02:15Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot of important work that we need to be doing.
02:19Permitting reform is obviously something I think is actually more important than any of those issues that we've been talking
02:26about.
02:26Because it's something that's really holding our nation back.
02:29It's a huge tax against our economy.
02:32And it really is very crucial to our future to be able to get back to building things here with
02:39certainty, with lower costs.
02:43And being able to put capital to work in our country to power our future.
02:48And so I would just say, yes, there's a lot of important things that need to get done.
02:52And this is a place where people obviously express what they think is most important to them.
02:58And certainly that's what the president was doing.
03:00Tell us a bit what you've heard from your constituents from Oklahomans about housing in particular.
03:05So, Christina, bringing up the fact that affordability is such a big issue here going into the midterm.
03:09What are you hearing from your constituents about the need for progress?
03:12Yes, on permitting reform, but just on affordable housing more broadly.
03:16Yeah, you know, I would say that's not a front and center issue in Oklahoma.
03:22We have a very low cost of living in Oklahoma.
03:25And our governor is, you know, really Governor Stitt's done a great job of making Oklahoma a place of low
03:32cost of living.
03:33And things that people do, things like blocking infrastructure and raising people's utility costs are actually things that we can
03:43do without spending money, without making tax breaks.
03:46One of the things I think is most interesting to me about the housing bill is that in the housing
03:51bill, some of the key elements of it, we're doing NEPA waivers.
03:55So, in other words, waiving the NEPA laws that is all about our permitting reform, you saw that same thing
04:04in the CHIPS Act.
04:06So, rather than actually fixing the problem and dealing with permitting reform, we keep putting on gloves to fix a
04:14leaky pin as it relates to our permitting process.
04:17And to me, that was a really stark issue for me on the housing bill.
04:21But even getting affordable housing is being impacted by how litigated all of our permitting processes have become here in
04:32the U.S.
04:33Well, I know another big cost is energy, and you are trying to address that and some of these issues
04:38in a new bill you're proposing.
04:40You want to run us through that?
04:41I mean, I know you have a lot of experience in the private sector when it comes to energy.
04:45What are you trying to get Washington to do from somebody who's been out there in the trenches where bottom
04:49lines and profits do actually matter?
04:52Yeah, you know, I've watched this for 40 years in my career on the private side, and I've just seen
05:00it get worse and worse and worse.
05:02Now, listen, for a company like the Williams Companies, where I was the CEO, that has a lot of the
05:08big incumbent pipelines, has the nation's largest pipeline,
05:11when you're the incumbent and it's hard to build new stuff, that's actually not a very bad business environment.
05:19But I think looking at it long term, realizing that you're just raising the price to consumers more and more,
05:27ultimately that's not a good thing for our country, certainly not a good thing for the consumers.
05:31And so it's one of the reasons that I actually took this role.
05:35In fact, it's the primary reason I took this role, was to try to do my best to kind of
05:39raise concern over how much our processes are costing the American people.
05:46People will get upset about their utility prices, and everybody wants to blame it on something other than the fact
05:52that our political processes today stand in the way of us being able to build infrastructure
05:59and connect abundant resources that we are very blessed with here in the U.S. to the consumer.
06:06If we had too much infrastructure, it would be the infrastructure companies, the pipeline companies, the power transmission companies,
06:12they would be competing and having to lower their prices to be able to deliver that product.
06:18But as it is, we've got bottlenecked and constrained infrastructure, and that's actually what's raising the price to consumers.
06:26I definitely want to ask you about the talks that are underway between the U.S. and Iran,
06:29but let me get into them by asking about what the president said a couple of times over the course
06:33of the week.
06:33That is, he's been very critical of gasoline companies for those prices not coming down as fast as we've seen
06:38oil prices come down.
06:39And I wonder what you would say to him, what you would say to somebody who maybe doesn't know how
06:43this works,
06:43why we're not seeing the kind of diminution in gas prices as quickly as certainly the president wants.
06:48There's a long lag time here.
06:50Yeah, and there always is.
06:52It's the way the market works.
06:54It's not like if price of oil goes down, you know, in one day that the person that bought that
07:02gasoline,
07:03the person that bought the oil to run it through the refinery, to then put it in a tank,
07:09to then take it through their pipelines, to then go to a storage facility there in the local area,
07:14and then finally wind up when you squeeze on the handle at the pump, that's a long, long transit time.
07:22And so it's not like that the price of that product just immediately gets lowered at the place that you're
07:28delivering the pump.
07:28In the retail gasoline business, it's called the shelf.
07:31And so you have prices stay up for a little bit longer.
07:35It's a profitable time for the retail gasoline, but guess what?
07:41On the way up, on the other direction, they have to bear the other side of that coin.
07:46So, I mean, you can track this.
07:48This is nothing new and nothing unusual to see retail gasoline and diesel prices lag the price of oil.
07:57In fact, it would be very unusual if that happened, frankly.
08:01But shouldn't the president know that or at least have someone who can explain it to him?
08:06Do you want to go over to the White House and maybe let him know that this is how this
08:10goes?
08:11Yeah, I think, you know, I think the president's got great advisors like Chris Wright in the House,
08:18or sorry, in his cabinet that certainly understand that.
08:22And I think he's, you know, he's been working hard to get straight-up or moves open,
08:27and he's just wanting to see that immediate gratification of that showing up.
08:32But it's the same thing, honestly, it's the same thing with the permitting issues.
08:35There's not immediate gratification around fixing permitting reform.
08:39You have to fix it, and then you have to let the infrastructure get built over time to see the
08:44benefit of it.
08:44But I just, I do think it is something that he's been fighting hard to get straight-up or moves
08:49open.
08:50He's thrilled to see oil prices coming down as hard as they are.
08:53And now he's wanting to see it show up at the pump.
08:56Speaking of permitting, you were talking about infrastructure and getting more energy and more of these facilities online.
09:01The administration has done a lot to take away some of the regulatory hurdles for these new nuclear startups being
09:09worked out.
09:11These, like, kind of startup-y, I don't know, nuclear and startup don't really seem to go together in my
09:15mind,
09:16so I don't think I can get the sentence out.
09:17But I know that there has been some controversy about some of these deregulations,
09:21but also feasibility and whether or not this is really the best place to invest this.
09:26Because so far, none of these startups are anywhere close to production and won't be for quite a few years.
09:31Is that where the administration, where the country should be focusing when it comes to new forms of energy?
09:36Or are there quicker, simpler ways to get that grid up and running faster?
09:40Well, I think we need to be focused on any and all kinds of energy.
09:46And I think we should never stop trying to bring innovation forward to be able to have long-term sources
09:52of energy.
09:53So things like fusion, which is not what the small marginal reactors are,
09:58but long-term, you know, we as a country have the ability to invest in research and develop.
10:04And frankly, the old model that we have of the large reactors is a very expensive, very risky process.
10:13You can certainly ask the southern companies with their, you know, big project in Vodal,
10:17which was the last big nuclear facility brought online.
10:20And it's a very difficult regulatory process.
10:24I think the effort that's going on that I think is really worthy of the U.S. paying attention to
10:29and trying to invest in is how do we take the energy from nuclear
10:35and make it simpler to actually be able to extract that energy, extract that heat, and make it commercial.
10:43The old way we've done things is big, complex, super expensive, and we certainly should.
10:51And I think, you know, the industry really got set back hard after some incidents
10:56and really was kind of back on its heels.
11:00And nobody really was willing to invest in innovation looking forward because it had such a bad name.
11:06And it kind of really crippled the ability to invest in innovation.
11:09So, yes, I think we should be investing in innovation there.
11:14And I think we ought to be, continue to pursue anything.
11:17Energy is such a vital part of any economy.
11:22And we would be foolish, I think, not to be investing in research to be able to bring that energy
11:28to us
11:29at a much lower cost in the future.
11:31Just a last question here.
11:32You're about to embark on a recess that I think goes until July the 13th.
11:35You, of course, are not going to be in the Senate for a very long period of time.
11:38You're filling a term that was vacated by Mark Wayne Mullen, who's now the Secretary of Homeland Security.
11:43I'm going to characterize you as kind of a single-issue senator in the short tenure that you have there.
11:47You're really focused on this issue of permitting reform.
11:49I'm curious, these few months into your tenure, that's not going to be a very long tenure,
11:53what surprised you about the place in terms of how difficult it is to make progress,
11:58how hard it is to get advancements on the issue or the issues that you care about?
12:02Yeah, well, I hope that what I'm experiencing is an anomaly that's associated with being right ahead of the midterms
12:10because there certainly seems to be a lot of effort just to make sure that the current administration
12:20and the Republican Party in general is not successful in getting productive things done.
12:26That's unfortunate.
12:28But that's certainly, you know, one of the things that surprised me the most is kind of how low on
12:34the list it is from a party's perspective,
12:38and particularly Democratic Party leadership in particular in this case,
12:43how much their focus is on just making sure nothing productive gets done.
12:47And I really don't come at that like you probably think I would as an Oklahoma Republican.
12:54I am actually very moderate, and I always think we should always put our country first, well ahead of our
13:00parties.
13:02But it's been kind of shocking to me to see how low on the list there what's best for our
13:08country is
13:09in the list of considerations in those debates.
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