Senator Alan Armstrong (R-OK) — former CEO of pipeline giant Williams — argued in The Hill that the United States' energy cost crisis is self-inflicted, rooted in a domestic permitting regime that blocks construction long after other approvals are in place. The receipts are specific: Pennsylvania natural gas sells near $2.75 per unit nationally, but 120 miles away in Massachusetts consumers pay $9.70 — 252 percent above average. California, isolated from interstate crude networks, imports more than 60 percent of its fuel from abroad and pays gasoline prices more than 30 percent above the national average.
Said Armstrong: "Energy abundance is meaningless if you can't move it to where it's needed."
This is the canonical American infrastructure trap — the same logic that left mid-19th-century grain rotting in prairie silos until railroad trunk lines caught up. The political economy is identical: abundance at the source, scarcity at the destination, and a legal environment that rewards delay over delivery. Armstrong's proposed fixes to Section 401 of the Clean Water Act deserve a serious hearing on their merits — and serious scrutiny of who actually benefits from the new litigation standards he proposes.