[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 116 (Thursday, July 16, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4124-S4127]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume legislative session.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.


                             Maiden Speech

  Mr. ARMSTRONG. 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 powerplants, pipelines, highways, 
transmission lines, and mines that raised our standard of living, 
enabled the

[[Page S4125]]

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.
  America's energy problem is not a lack of resources, nor is it a lack 
of ingenuity. It is our failure to build the infrastructure needed to 
move these resources to the people who need them.
  We should be honest about how we got here. Like a frog in the boiling 
pot, we have slowly gotten into this dangerous condition that holds our 
great Nation back. Over time, too many political leaders have become 
complacent. It became easier to oppose a project than to defend the 
need to build one.
  When every pipeline, transmission line, power generator, and 
industrial project is treated as something to stop rather than 
something to build responsibly, the costs of that do not disappear; 
they accumulate slowly, until families are paying more, reliability is 
deteriorating, and investment is moving elsewhere.
  Nowhere is that failure clearer than in the Northeast. Pennsylvania 
sits atop one of the most prolific natural gas formations not in the 
United States but in the world. Yet, only a few hundred miles away, 
families and businesses in New England pay some of the highest energy 
prices in the country because the region lacks sufficient pipeline 
capacity.
  That constraint creates an artificial scarcity. When demand rises 
during the winter, natural gas must serve both home heating and 
electricity generation. Because the pipelines cannot deliver enough 
fuel, prices surge, and generators turn to more expensive and dirtier 
alternatives, like fuel oil.
  We saw this during the 2018 bomb cyclone. New England was forced to 
burn additional oil and actually import LNG from Russia even though 
abundant natural gas was available nearby. And I will remind you that 
this is gas that is priced at an equivalence of $0.42 a gallon versus 
the $4 per gallon fuel oil that it was substituted with. That outcome 
was not caused by a shortage of American energy; it was caused by a 
shortage of American infrastructure and by years of political decisions 
that made blocking projects easier than building them.
  I saw this problem firsthand while leading the Williams Companies. We 
pursued the Constitution Pipeline, a 120-mile project designed to carry 
low-cost Pennsylvania natural gas to constrained markets in the 
Northeast. We had our Federal certificate. We had bought the pipe, we 
had bought the right-of-way, and we were actually in the process of 
clearing the route. But we were stopped by a State government that used 
section 401 of the Clean Water Act as a political veto, actually 
waiting until Earth Day to deny a permit for reasons that had 
absolutely nothing to do with water quality.
  It is actually ironic. Opponents to natural gas projects act like 
they are saving the planet, but what their efforts really do is make us 
shift to energy sources that have much higher emissions, like having 
folks in New England burn fuel oil. Yes, New England and New York use 
more fuel oil for power generation than anywhere in our Nation.
  I also saw the chilling effect of judicial overreach. Williams built 
a billion-dollar pipeline project to move gas from Pennsylvania into 
New Jersey. It was completely constructed. It was up and running. It 
was operating at a 90-percent load factor during the peak of the winter 
load. Yet, 9 months after it was fully constructed and in service, the 
court vacated the certificate.
  Mr. President, put yourself in that board room for a minute. Imagine 
explaining to your board that you just spent a billion dollars on a 
project the government now says you have no license to operate. What do 
you think that board is going to say the next time you bring them a 
large project to build?
  These consequences are not limited to heating bills. The same 
infrastructure constraints leave our electricity system with less 
flexibility and almost no margin for error when demand surges. In fact, 
we saw this just 2 weeks ago in the PJM market--the Nation's largest 
power market. Electricity that normally trades at approximately $60 per 
megawatt-hour rose to roughly $300 per megawatt-hour. At certain 
locations on the system, prices actually reached up to $2,500 per 
megawatt-hour. In addition to that, PJM reduced and took emergency 
steps to restrict electricity to certain facilities, shutting down 
certain industries.
  Those wholesale price spikes do not remain confined to an electricity 
market; they eventually appear in the utility bills paid by families 
and businesses.
  I have spent a good deal of my time over the past several months 
sitting in the presiding chair where you are today, Mr. President, and 
listening to Democratic leaders rail against high gasoline prices. 
Well, gasoline is not the only energy bill families have to pay. In New 
York, retail electricity prices have risen by approximately 60 percent 
over the last 5 years--significantly more than gasoline prices have 
risen. Yet we hear far less outrage about the rising costs of keeping 
the lights on, heating a home, or running a small business.
  We cannot simply blame those increases on energy producers. In fact, 
wholesale natural gas prices have declined over the same 5-year period 
on an inflation-adjusted basis. We cannot blame them on instability in 
the Strait of Hormuz either. The problem is actually much closer to 
home. It is the result of years of complacency here in government and a 
political culture that rewarded saying no while ignoring the cost of 
failing to build.
  When we prevent pipelines and transmission lines from connecting 
abundant supply with growing demand, the consequences are actually 
predictable: Prices rise, reliability declines, and generators rely 
more heavily on costly backup fuels.
  The economic consequences extend far beyond the utility sector. A 
manufacturer, a data center, an industrial facility will not commit 
billions of dollars to a region if it cannot obtain reliable energy at 
a competitive price. Those projects move elsewhere, taking jobs, tax 
revenues, and economic opportunity with them.
  That is the central contradiction of our current system--America can 
produce extraordinary quantities of affordable energy, but our 
permitting process too often prevents us from being able to deliver it 
to the consumers. That is not an inevitable outcome. It is the result 
of political choices, and it can be corrected by political courage. 
That is why the opportunity before us is so significant, and this is 
why permitting reform is such a passion of mine.

  I constantly ask a simple question as I spend my time here in the 
Senate: Why wouldn't we do this?
  In this body, we often debate how much taxpayer money we should spend 
to solve a problem, but permitting reform presents us with something 
fundamentally different--an opportunity to strengthen the country that 
requires zero taxpayer investment. By cutting unnecessary delays and 
restoring predictability to the permitting process, we can attract 
private investment, lower consumer costs, create jobs, and grow this 
economy. It is, quite literally, economic opportunity lying on the 
ground. We simply need to pick it up.
  That leads me to another question: Who would actually be against 
this? Who would oppose a plan that attracts private investment back to 
our shores by providing the clarity that project developers desperately 
need?

[[Page S4126]]

  Perhaps our enemies would oppose it. They certainly see our inability 
to build as a huge vulnerability and as a weakness of our great 
democracy. They benefit when our projects are trapped in an endless 
loop of reviews, appeals, and litigation--or perhaps it is the cottage 
industry of litigants that has learned to profit from delay. These 
special interest groups have increasingly used administrative tools--
originally intended to protect legitimate environmental interests--to 
stall or block projects for political purposes and end up doing more 
harm than good for our environment.
  They may not actually care about the environment, but I do. They need 
a villain to drive their fundraising. They have made the energy company 
that villain even though it is the utility--and particularly the 
consumer of the utility--who ultimately pays the price.
  Every day, Americans probably don't see the connection between 
something like a 401 water quality certificate and their skyrocketing 
utility bills, but I do. I have seen firsthand how these arbitrary 
standards are used as political footballs. When we allow these delays, 
we aren't hurting Big Energy; we are forcing American families to pay 
three times the rate for their power because of the massive risk that 
we have injected into the system.
  It is time to stop the regulatory creep and the endless litigation. 
It is time to embrace a fuel source-neutral approach that focuses on 
one thing: building a stronger, more secure America. Unless you are a 
trial lawyer looking for a payout or a foreign adversary looking for a 
weakened America, there really is no reason to be against this.
  This country was built by men and women who understood that great 
nations must be the best places to host tomorrow's industries. We 
should honor that inheritance not by merely maintaining what was left 
to us but by demonstrating the same courage and ambition.
  The defining geopolitical contests of this century will be won by the 
nations that can deploy their resources, not just those that possess 
them. America has the energy, the capital, and the technology to lead. 
The only remaining question is whether we have the political will to 
build the infrastructure necessary to turn those advantages into 
sustained global leadership.
  I am retired from the industry. I have zero political ambition beyond 
this seat that I hold right now. I am here because I have seen how this 
system is positioned to strangle our great country. Let's stop choosing 
short-term popularity over long-term economic and national security.
  We have a bill. Let's work together to legislate a solution. We 
cannot let what has been one of our greatest strengths turn into our 
biggest vulnerability.
  It is time for this Senate to show courage and lead. It is time to 
restore confidence in America's capacity to outrun our competition, and 
it is time to get America building again.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to welcome Senator Armstrong 
from Oklahoma in his delivering his maiden speech. It is an important 
part of this institution, and I hope all of my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle who weren't able to hear him in person will have a chance 
to listen to it and to get to know him during his stay here.
  Welcome to the Senate.
  Mr. ARMSTRONG. Thank you very much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I welcome my colleague from 
Oklahoma and thank him. I completely agree with his ideas. We have got 
to get energy production increased in this country and drive down the 
prices for all consumers.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3857

  Mr. President, I rise today to seek the passage of my One Nation, One 
Visa Policy Act.
  Imagine if every State in the Union, on a whim, had the power to 
allow foreign nationals to travel to their States without a visa. In 
other words, imagine if American States allowed anyone, from anywhere, 
for any reason, to access American sovereign territory--even those from 
adversarial countries; that you could do it in any State. Most 
Americans would say that that would be an insane policy, and they would 
be absolutely right. Florida can't set its own visa policies, neither 
can, you know, New Mexico, Texas, California, or New York. That would 
be chaos, and it would make our immigration system meaningless.
  Currently, the only place in the United States where visa-free travel 
from foreign countries is allowed--the only place--is in the Mariana 
Islands, a territory. It is in this small U.S. Pacific island territory 
where foreign nationals can legally enter America without having a 
visa.
  Since 2009, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or 
CNMI, has become a hotbed for birth tourism, which is a strategy used 
by citizens of foreign powers to deliberately undermine our Nation's 
immigration laws. Over 3,300 communist Chinese nationals have been born 
on these islands except they are also bona fide American citizens. They 
have passports, birth certificates, and Social Security cards. Keep in 
mind this is a territory where only 45,000 Americans live. The CCP and 
Chinese civilians found this loophole and have exploited it for 
birthright citizenship. You can be a full-fledged devotee of the CCP--
you can actually hate America and hate our people and hate our way of 
life--and still abuse birth tourism to get a foothold in the country 
you seek to undermine and destroy.
  Now, come on. That is ridiculous. It all needs to end now.
  All the One Nation, One Visa Policy Act does is stop this visa-free 
travel from communist China to the United States. It doesn't ban travel 
from China--you can still come--but it says: If you are a citizen from 
China, which is our foremost adversary, you have got to get a visa. We 
have got to know who you are if you want to enter my State, any of our 
States, or any other sovereign territory of our country. You have got 
to get a visa if you are from communist China. It is common sense.
  I am grateful to Secretary Mullin, who, while a U.S. Senator, signed 
on to my letter to then-Secretary Noem that called for an end to 
China's participation in any Chinese visa waiver program.
  As Secretary Mullin continues to work to end China's visa-free 
privilege, I hope the United States Senate can offer the administration 
the support it deserves by passing this legislation immediately.
  I would also like to thank my friends, Senators Lee, McCormick, Budd, 
and Lankford, for cosponsoring this legislation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the 
Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 3857 and that 
the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask that 
the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion 
to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, this 
bill will needlessly punish the Northern Mariana Islands and 
significantly--or I should say further--harm its tourist economy, which 
is the islands' largest source of revenue and jobs.
  There is a current program in place. The current program requires any 
visitors who come to the Northern Mariana Islands through this program 
to undergo a two-step vetting process by the Department of Homeland 
Security, including having an in-person interview. That program has 
already reduced visitation from the PRC from over 185,000 visitors down 
to 18 in 2026--not 18,000 but 18. The purpose is to ensure that 
visitors do not pose any risk to the United States but allow the 
islands' economy to grow. The current visa program was put in place 
after a long and thoughtful consultation between the United States and 
our territory the Northern Mariana Islands. It successfully balances 
both our national security needs and supports the economic vitality of 
the Northern Mariana Islands.
  The Northern Mariana Islands are more than just an American 
territory; they are one of our most important partners in the Pacific 
to actually

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counter China's influence in this critical theater. We can't ask them 
to further decimate their tourism economy. This legislation, as well 
meaning as it is, would certainly undermine the stability of our 
partner and American territory. We should not abolish the program. 
Instead, we need to ensure the Department of Homeland Security is doing 
sufficient screening to prevent visitation that poses a risk.
  The Northern Mariana Islands do not have a voice in the Senate, and 
that is why I am objecting today in support of our partner in the 
Pacific.
  While I oppose the passage of this bill, I do stand ready to work 
with Senator Scott and others to support the security of our Nation in 
a way that does not harm the people and government of the Northern 
Mariana Islands.
  So I object to the request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I recognize my colleague. We 
both are in the same position. We don't want to do anything that 
absolutely hurts the economy of the CNMI, but at the same time, we have 
got to figure this out to make sure that we don't have birth tourism.
  So I look forward to working with my colleague in a constructive 
manner to make sure that, you know, the Communist Party of China does 
not abuse this so as to have birth tourism there.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.

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