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Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, 2 hours ago, Markwayne Mullin was sworn in as the Secretary of Homeland Security. I am grateful that he is there and is taking on that role. We finished that vote last night, and at the end of that vote last night, he walked over to his desk, which is right over there, and signed paperwork to resign from the U.S. Senate.

This morning, the Governor of Oklahoma announced his selection for the interim Senator to be able to come in. It is solely the Governor's decision to be able to make this decision, and I think he has made a great decision on this.

The Governor signed paperwork this morning in Oklahoma and announced that he was appointing Alan Armstrong, who is the just-past president and CEO of the Williams Companies, a third-generation Oklahoman and Tulsan to be our next Senator for the State of Oklahoma.

He and his wife Shelly have been married for 40 years. They have four grown children. They have three grandchildren. He has just stepped down and retired from his position in leadership at Williams and was looking forward to spending a lot more time with grandchildren, and the Governor contacted him and said: Hey, would you, instead, consider giving the next 9 months to the United States of America and to the State of Oklahoma to be able to serve as the junior Senator for Oklahoma.

I am grateful that he said yes because I think he will do a terrific job in this role. He comes with a tremendous amount of business experience coming in, but people lose track of the fact that he was president and CEO of one of the largest natural gas and midstream companies in the country; in fact, one of the largest companies in the world to be able to handle the movement of clean, natural gas all over the country.

There are literally families all over America that are depending on the services that Williams provides for them every day. They may not know the name Williams, but the reason that their stove works, their heater works, or their hot water tank works is because Williams is actually providing the access to be able to get that energy to that spot at that moment.

He graduated from the University of Oklahoma years ago and graduated as a civil engineer who went to work for Williams almost four decades ago as just a civil engineer. He literally worked his way up the ranks, serving in multiple different roles in the Williams Companies until he finally attained president and CEO where he has led the company since 2011, just stepping away to, as I said, get more time with grandchildren until he got that call just about a week ago.

So I am grateful that he is coming. I am looking forward to my colleagues having the opportunity to be able to meet him and to be able to integrate him into this body of 100 Members.

He will join as rank No. 100 and will serve here through the rest of this year, but I am very grateful that he has chosen to set aside his private life to be able to step into a season of public service.

So I look forward to my colleagues, in just a few moments, getting a chance to be able to meet the newest Senator to join us, the soon-to-be Senator Alan Armstrong.

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