After Markwayne Mullin was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as secretary of homeland security Monday, Gov. Kevin Stitt officially appointed petroleum executive and political newcomer Alan Armstrong today to fill Oklahoma’s vacant Senate seat. Armstrong, 63, will serve in office until a new senator is elected in November.
“I’ll admit to you, I a little bit feel like I’m stepping off into the abyss and am not exactly sure what I’m getting into,” Armstrong said during a press conference Tuesday. “But I’m confident I’ve got a great team around me and great support around me, and I really do look forward to making a difference for the short time that I’m in the Senate.”
Throughout the event, Stitt and Armstrong repeatedly emphasized a “primary focus” for the Tulsa oilman’s roughly nine-month appointment: energy permitting reform.
“It is really a critical time for our country. I look around and realize how important energy decisions are and, in general, infrastructure decisions are. And if you travel around the world these days, you realize we are falling behind on being leaders in infrastructure. It used to be when you would fly around, you’d think, ‘Wow, I’m really glad I live in the U.S. and we have all the benefits of large-scale infrastructure,'” Armstrong said. “The truth is, it’s gotten very, very hard to build large-scale infrastructure, and it is so critical to our country’s competitiveness in the long term. Williams, obviously, has been in the business of building large-scale infrastructure, but what has really caught my attention is it’s hard for any kind of infrastructure to get built, and that is really holding our country back. I really want to make sure that we really have meaningful permitting reform, not just getting a bill that says we got permitting reform but it not really being effective for getting things built.”
Armstrong’s selection was first reported by NOTUS, and Stitt and Armstrong met with President Donald Trump on Sunday to discuss the appointment. State law requires Armstrong to sign an affidavit saying he will not run for a full six-year term this election cycle, although the enforceability of that requirement has yet to be tested in court.
Stitt said the meeting went well with Trump, and he used an elongated metaphor to emphasize his frustration with how petroleum pipeline, wind and solar projects have faced stops and starts throughout the country based on changes in presidential administrations.
“Let’s say you guys are building your dream home,” Stitt said. “You and your spouse have saved, and you went and got a permit from the city. You went and got financing from the bank. You started building your home. You’re 80 percent complete. It’s dried in and you’re actually putting your final kitchen together, and you’re getting everything delivered. And the new mayor gets elected and pulls your permit. That’s what is happening right now in permitting. I just think we can’t have a country that picks and chooses.”
A Bartlesville native, Armstrong is a longtime Oklahoma energy executive who currently serves on the boards of Constellation Energy and Williams, though Stitt said he would have to step down from those positions and others during his Senate term.
Armstrong spent his career working for Williams, where he started in 1986 and worked until his retirement in 2025. According to a Williams press release, he worked as the company’s Gulf Coast director of commercial operations and in various vice president roles before he was appointed CEO of the company in 2011. Williams is a Tulsa-based energy company founded in 1908.
Stitt praised Armstrong’s leadership of the company Tuesday.
“Alan began his career nearly four decades ago as a young engineer, and he quickly rose up the ranks at Williams. And by the way, Williams is Oklahoma’s largest company,” Stitt said. “It’s because of Alan’s leadership — and people forget about this — that Williams is still headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There was another big pipeline company that tried to take them over, and Alan fought and kept them headquartered in the state of Oklahoma, which should be commended.”
Presented with the opportunity to appoint someone for a temporary tenure in the U.S. Senate, Stitt said America’s energy infrastructure problems were at the forefront when he was pondering “who would be the best person to serve.”
“To be quite frank with you, I thought of Alan on my own,” Stitt said. “I thought, ‘Who is the best guy who has worked across the aisle and has been a forward thinker in this?’ I think there were some other people who told me you ought to think about Alan. And obviously we had other great candidates who understand oil and gas.”
Armstrong: ‘I’ve got a lot of learning to do’
Armstrong appears to be far less political than the typical Oklahoma senator, and he will become the first U.S. senator from Oklahoma to serve without ever campaigning for political office. He is also the first senator from Oklahoma since Don Nickles not to have previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first Oklahoma senator since Edward H. Moore (who left office in 1949) not to have previously held elected office before his Senate tenure.
The Tulsa World reported Armstrong has donated $195,000 to federal political campaigns since 2004, with his largest donation being in support of Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK1) in 2024. News 9 noted Armstrong donated $5,800 to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL16) after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the wake of the attack, Kinzinger was a vocal critic of Trump, going so far as to call for his removal. NOTUS’ Reese Gorman reported the donation was likely a topic of conversation at the meeting between Trump, Stitt and Armstrong on Sunday at Mar-a-Lago.
At a talk given to the Tulsa Regional Chamber reported by the Tulsa World, Armstrong did provide some insight for his new constituents on some of his political views, mostly involving local issues. He told the chamber that opposition to data centers was likely “not sustainable.”
“But if your perspective is, ‘Well, we should just sit our on hands and not do anything,’ I’m sorry, but that’s a recipe for disaster for our communities,” Armstrong said. “The concept that, ‘We don’t want to do this because it’s going to inconvenience me a little bit or it might inconvenience me in the future and I want it to be like it’s always been’ — I just think that is not a sustainable way of thinking about how our communities survive.”
Armstrong also shared his preference for the city manager form of municipal government and offered his thoughts on homelessness.
“I don’t call it homelessness because I don’t think homelessness would be the chronic issue that it is, if it wasn’t for the mental health and drug addiction problems. If all we were dealing with was people who were actually put out of a home because they had lost their job, but they were a hard-working, reliable person — and that’s all of the people we were trying to take care of — I don’t think we’d have a homeless problem,” Armstrong said. “I know this is controversial, but the real issue, the reason our homeless problem is so difficult, is because it’s so hard to help people who can’t help themselves.”
Former state legislator Jim Dunlap, who served in the Oklahoma House from 1988 to 1996 and the State Senate from 1996 to 2004, praised the appointment of his former classmate.
“I think it’s the best appointment Stitt has made so far,” Dunlap said of Armstrong.
Asked his thoughts on U.S. military actions in Iran and their impact on energy prices, Armstrong said he would be looking to learn more about the situation as he headed to Washington right after Tuesday’s press conference.
“That’s something I’m going to be working closely with the Republican leadership on. I think it’s important in times like this for people to be speaking together on those issues, so I’ll be working very closely with Republican leadership on that,” Armstrong said. “Very thankful to have the wisdom and the relationship with Sen. (James) Lankford, who I really admire and appreciate his knowledge on a lot of these issues. I’ve got a lot of learning to do, but I’m going to be listening deeply.
