Here’s NAM President John Engler’s reaction to the President’s State of the Union message.

Oh, and here’s also a link to our reaction on trade, another on health care and one more on taxes. There, that pretty much covers the topics addressed tonight, right?

“Protectionists want to escape competition, pretending that we can keep our high standard of living while walling off our economy. ”

“Americans should not fear our economic future, because we intend to shape it.”

“With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker.”

“Our greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated, hard-working, ambitious people — and we are going to keep that edge.”

“…And I will continue to nominate men and women who understand that judges must be servants of the law, and not legislate from the bench.”

“Second -guessing is not a strategy.”

“Liberty is the right and hope of all humanity.”

OK, the blogger-in-chief is back. Thanks to the blogger’s apprentice for holding down the fort.

What a great sight to see Justice Alito enter the Chamber. Now the President has just entered. We’ll be watching, will write some notes later. More Members of Congress will be coming by after the speech with comments and we’ll be here to fill you in on who is here and what they have to say.

Reps. Price (GA-6) and Kennedy (MN-6) have joined us and again the discussion returns to Energy.

Rep. Price: “I’ve got legislation to focus our energy policy to move us in a direction of less dependency on mideast oil. We need to focus on alternative fuels and decreasing regulations as well, for refineries. We need to increase our nuclear energy capacity and reduce the regulations on nuclear facilities to reduce the 8-10 year time span it takes to get a nuclear plant online.

Kennedy: The House passed the first energy bill in 20 years. It was a start and we do need to do more. Natural gas prices are hurting us indeed. We’ve passed a refinery bill but we’re waiting on the Senate. We need an energy plan not just for economic reasons but for security reasons as well.

Rep. Pombo (chair of the House Resources Committee) has joined us. You may recall that we jumped in a while ago to defend him from a cheap shot attack from the New York Times.

“We need to get more aggressive on energy. ANWR is the one that gets all the attention, that’s a small part of what we need to do but its something we must do. ANWR needs to be protected, but it doesn’t mean we can’t protect it and explore for oil at the same time.”

Pombo also put ANWR into perspective, including the fact that its only 2,000 acres-one-fifth the size of Dulles Airport, as we have noted.

We need to make sure America remains the best place in the world to do business. But businesses don’t want to stay in America if they have to pay the highest energy prices in the world and if Congress blocks access to American resources.

We must use American resources as we look to increasing and diversifying all our energy supplies. Why would we actively seek to increase our imports? Why wouldn’t we want to create U.S. jobs?

We need to look at unconventional sources and renewal energy like wind, bio-diesel, geothermal & solar energy. At the same time, we need to improve conservation and the efficient use of energy. It also would be irresponsible to pretend we won’t need traditional fossil fuels in the near future as we transition to alternative sources.

Rep. Dreier (CA-26) has joined us. Republicans need to continue to be the party of reform. Earmark reform is a very important part of the process, so is Congressional travel. I’m a big fan of Congressional travel but there has to be a way to distinguish between junkets and fact finding missions (editors note: like plant tours). Dreier declined to say how any new legislation might be written to retain educational fact finding missions.

(Editors Note: We were keenly interested in Dreier’s remarks on Congressional Travel, especially with his responsibility as head of the House Rules Committee).

Reps. Conaway (TX-11) and Carter (TX-31) have joined us. Again, the topic turns to energy.

Says Conaway, I’m from Midland, at the heart of the Permian Basin; we have more holes drilled in the ground here than any other place on earth. The Andrews community in my district is trying to build a nuclear reactor, they recognize that it’s a more cost efficient deal; we are at the heart of the oil and gas but we also recognize the need to look far sighted. We’ve also been talking about clean coal technology in my district.

Says Rep. Carter: I have almost no oil and gas production in my district but we’re looking into alternative fuels. At Texas A&M, they founda way to turn almost any organic product into alcohol, it’s a simple process.

On Lobbying reform, I’m very much opposed to knee-jerk reactions to anything. I’m an old trial judge; I’ve sent more people to prison than are in this building. I’m all for letting the process work. I also don’t think Congress is tainted entirely. But I’ll listen to every opinion, we all need to calm down and see exactly what we’re doing. I don’t really care if we abolish earmarks.

Conaway on lobbying reform, “I think its offensive that getting a $2,000 personal check or a $5,000 PAC check equates to being bought; that receiving that kind of money means I’ll sell out my personal integrity.”

Rep. Harris has just joined us. She followed up on Conaway’s remarks on lobbying by adding, “I’m from the Sunshine state; transparency is important.” On earmarks, “I would be delighted to show my earmarks. Its difficult to get the media’s attention about the good that we’re doing in my district. In my first term is was $50 million. There are two priorities: first reduce spending but if there is going to be spending, we want a say in how its spent; we know better than the bureaucrats.

On energy she remarked about the importance of alternative fuels and remarked that their is a slaughterhouse in her district which is powered by–get this–cow maneuer.

The BIC had to run to a meeting, so I’ve taken over for him for a while while (lucky you).

Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-2) has joined us. Of course, we asked him about lobbying reform. He noted that, “I’m totally in favor of reigning in lobbying excess….the Abramoff scandal requires regaining the American people’s trust.” There should be a longer timespan between when members leave the House and when they can lobby other members. “We’ve got to stop the revolving door.” Make it four years, perhaps.

We asked him about Rep. Pence’s proposal of scrapping the 1974 Budget Act. “Pence is right. We all like our add ons,” he said.