(NAM Executive Vice President Jay Timmons is blogging from the Republican National Convention this week in St. Paul, Minn., following up on his reports from the Democratic Convention last week in Denver.)

Had lunch with an old friend, Mark Buse, John McCain’s Chief of Staff in the Senate. As might be expected at the McCain nominating convention, Mark had to balance the bites of food in front of him, with calls from his boss.

Mark is someone who knows John McCain well – he first started working for then-Congressman McCain in 1984. Although he went into business for himself four years ago, the Senator called Mark back into public service earlier this year when he named him Chief. Prior to his stint in the private sector, Mark was the staff director of the Senate Commerce Committee where he worked with the Senator to advance common sense economic policy that promoted competition and growth.

My conversation with Mark reminded me that John McCain has a knack for surrounding himself with competent and knowledgeable folks. In addition to Mark, Rick Davis – the manager of the presidential campaign – has been a long-time loyalist of McCain. And the senior strategist Senator McCain recently brought on board – Steve Schmidt – is well-known as one of the most skilled and savvy campaign professionals in the country.

Most notable, in a town where long-term employment is often defined as anything exceeding 12 months, and relationships are too many times merely transactional, loyalty is a premium. John McCain hires well, and his team is known for their devotion and loyalty to him. That speaks volumes.

With oil prices at record high levels Americans are more eager than ever to find affordable, alternative fuels. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), a guest on this week’s edition of “America’s Business with Mike Hambrick” radio program, says nuclear power will be an important part of our nation’s future energy supply.

Clyburn’s state is already pro-nuclear. More than half of South Carolina’s electricity came from nuclear power plants in 2004, according to the Energy Information Administration. “I do believe that if we are going to…ever wean ourselves off of foreign oil we’re going to have to do it with nuclear in the mix,” Clyburn says.

Commerce Undersecretary Chris Padilla is responsible for helping formulate America’s international trade policy. He will appear on America’s Business to talk about why a pending trade agreement with Colombia is important to the U.S. economy and job creation and why lawmakers are wrong to block passage of that deal.

Our radio program will also host one of the biggest supporters of free trade in Congress – Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT). The National Association of Manufacturers recently honored Matheson for his unwavering support of free trade. Like Padilla, Matheson says Congress should approve the Colombia deal. The agreement will open that market to American goods and services and help support an important South American ally, he says.

“We should be rewarding Colombia for the progress it has made – the move to democracy, the move to a secure situation in that country, the move to respect human rights,” he says. “It’s been such a great success story.”

Who will presumptive presidential nominees Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain pick as running mates? National Association of Manufacturers Executive Vice President Jay Timmons, who has been deeply involved in the national political scene for years, will give us his take on who could be vice president.

In our regular segments, Renee Giachino of American Justice Partnership gives us the latest on tort reform and commentator Hank Cox recalls “The Way It Was.” And our program will close with “The Last Word” from the National Association of Manufacturers President Gov. John Engler.

For more about “America’s Business with Mike Hambrick” and to listen to the program online, please click here. And for video highlights and more, check out http://www.americasbusiness.org.

Henry Payne, a keen observer of the auto industry, takes a tough look at the energy policies — and voting history — of both presidential candidates on their recent visits to Michigan.

Unmentioned in the media coverage of sparring energy plans is that both candidates are ardent supporters of federal cap-and-trade laws. Writing for the Mackinac Center, a Michigan think tank, author Deneen Borelli reports that “the economic cost of a cap-and-trade bill would hit Michigan especially hard. The increase in energy costs would compound the loss of manufacturing jobs in the state and reduce the disposable income of Michigan residents.”

Yesterday we noted Sen. Obama’s floor statement in June 2005 on H.R. 6, the Energy Policy Act, which included much criticism of the legislation that he did vote for.

Today, a bit more from Sen. McCain’s statement. Sen. McCain voted no, and one reason was the bill’s failure to include provisions he and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) proposed to control global warming through cap-and-trade.

Instead of our approach, the American public is going to be saddled entirely with the expense of this bill, which is running on empty– empty of new ideas–and further running up our deficit. The fuel we should be relying on to drive our national energy policy is American consumer demand. If we allowed consumer demand to drive our legislative actions, this bill would emphasize energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy and include a reasonable and progressive CAFE standard for SUVs and all other passenger vehicles. If it were up to American consumers, we wouldn’t be imposing a meaningless 8 billion gallon ethanol mandate, but instead would be making it possible for people to obtain and operate their automobiles using clean and abundant biofuels that actually reduce our dependence on foreign oil and not just provide subsidies to the ethanol producers. If it were to the American public, we would not be repealing the Public Utility Holding Company Act, PUHCA, without replacing it with alternative protections for utility ratepayers, investors, and pension plans. Finally, if it were up to the American public, we would pass a bill that addresses global climate change: more than 75 percent of Americans believe that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and participate with our allies and other countries in a united effort. And in the process of reducing emissions, we would also improve the health of millions of Americans who suffer from asthma and other air quality related conditions.

It’s almost as if he’s arguing for a complete transformation of the American economy.

But wait, that’s Senator Obama, as Daniel Henninger quotes the Illinois Democrat in today’s Journal, a piece called “Enviromania“: “Breaking our oil addiction . . . will take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy.”

A top-down, government imposed complete transformation of our economy. History suggests a bad end to that sort of thing.

A flurry of reporting on the presidential candidates and their votes on energy legislation in 2005. Here’s a good summary of the disputations from U.S. News.com:

Energy week continued yesterday in the presidential race. On the Democratic side, Sen. Barack Obama asserted that Sen. John McCain’s energy policies were lifted from Vice President Dick Cheney. NBC Nightly News showed Obama saying, “When George Bush took office he had an energy policy. He turned to Dick Cheney and he told Cheney, go take care of this. So, John McCain has taken a page out of the Bush-Cheney playbook.” The AP reports Obama “told an audience in Youngstown, Ohio, that the Bush energy policy, crafted in large part by Vice President Dick Cheney, an ex-oilman, tilted to provide tax breaks and favorable treatment for Big Oil and that McCain would expand oil industry tax breaks by $4 billion.” Bloomberg News quotes Obama as saying during another stop, “Here in Ohio, you’re paying nearly $3.70 a gallon for gas — two and a half times what it cost when President Bush took office. Senator McCain not only wants oil companies to keep every dime of that money, he wants to give them more.”

The Washington Post adds that McCain, however, “noted that it was Obama, not he, who had voted for” President Bush’s “2005 energy bill, which included major subsidies for oil companies. NBC Nightly News showed McCain saying, “When the energy bill came to the floor of the Senate full of goodies and breaks for the oil companies, I voted against it. Senator Obama voted for it.”

That’s right. The NAM “key voted” the 2005 energy bill, with support for H.R. 6 being marked a vote in support of manufacturing. (Key Vote letter here.) The specific vote we highlighted was Senate passage of H.R. 6, on June 28, 2005, by a vote of 85-12. Senator Obama voted aye, the NAM’s preferred position; Senator McCain voted no.

Both Senators made floor statements on the day of passage, both which read today as…non-operational.

• Senator Obama’s statement
• Senator McCain’s statement

As far as NAM voting records go, their positions on H.R. 6 were outliers. Obama supported the NAM’s position 16 percent of the time on key votes in the 109th Congress; McCain’s support was 63 percent. (Grid here.)

UPDATE (5:07 p.m.): AP covered takes a look at the 2005 vote in this story.

From The San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate, writing about Sen. John McCain’s latest energy policy pronouncements:

Environmental groups said McCain’s proposal is at odds with his own legislative proposals in recent years to set mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, which would ultimately shift America away from fossil fuels.

“Drilling in protected areas offshore won’t solve our energy needs in the short term, and in the long term will increase the threat of global warming,” said League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski.

But former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in an interview Monday on a radio show produced by the National Association of Manufacturers, said drilling offshore is a crucial way to reduce dependence on foreign oil and boost national security.

“We have an unknown potential offshore in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico where it’s been illegal to look for oil,” Gingrich said. “The fact is there are a lot of American sources we could be using.”

For the Gingrich interview on America’s Business, please go here.

And note well the comments from Karpinski. He is stating the environmentalist position that opposes any expansion of oil development, not just in “protected areas offshore.” Because fossil fuels contribute to global warming — he says — their use is unacceptable. That’s an extreme position, but the real one held by the green groups.

It’s not WHERE the drilling occurs, it’s the fact THAT any drilling is occurring at all.

The Hill today reports that the White House is talking directly to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, over legislation that would allow needed surveillance of foreign telecommunications to continue, i.e., FISA reform.  If the stakes weren’t so serious, we’d dismiss it as an another account of turf battles, prerogatives, who-said-what-when and the like…the inevitable if annoying back-and-forth that occurs with any large group of people, legislative bodies especially.

But the stakes are high. House leadership has prevented a vote on FISA reform that would reauthorize the effective surveillance needed to protect U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks, with one sticking point being immunity for telecommunications companies that assisted in post-9/11 surveillance in response to lawful government orders. The telecoms are facing some 40 lawsuits from individuals and groups who oppose the Administration’s position on surveillance, aided by trial lawyers out for a buck.

Andrew C. McCarthy has been covering the McCain camp’s view of the FISA legislation, cast into doubt after a recent Washington Post story.  In a National Review article Monday, McCarthy summarizes:

The McCain campaign is unequivocally telling “Corner” readers that the senator supports the Senate bill, that he believes the telecoms acted appropriately in acquiescing in government requests for cooperation after the 9/11 attacks, and that no further hearings are necessary to get to the bottom of what happened given the searching congressional investigations that have already occurred.

CQ Politics covered the lobbying angle on Monday here.

Since Senator Obama has sewn up Democratic nomination for President, it seems a useful time to post his and Senator John McCain’s record on National Association of Manufacturers’ Key Votes.

The only Congress where we get a direct vote-to-vote comparison is the 109th Congress, 2005-2006. Senator Obama’s NAM vote rating was 16 percent. Sen. McCain’s was 63 percent.

Each NAM summary for the candidate’s includes a sampling of other group’s ratings.

Obama:

National Association of Manufacturers, 2006:     (16%) National Federation of Independent Business, 2006:     (12%) U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2006:     (39%) Associated General Contractors, 2006:     (62%) BIPAC, 2006:     (10%) National Small Business Association, 2006:     (28%) AFL-CIO, 2006:     (100%) American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, 2006:     (100%) League of Conservation Voters, 2006:     (96%) Public Citizens Congress Watch, 2006:     (69%) Service Employees International Union, 2006:     (94%) United Auto Workers, 2006:     (93%)

McCain:

National Association of Manufacturers, 2006:     (63%) National Federation of Independent Business, 2006:     (100%) U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2006:     (72%) Associated General Contractors, 2006:     (62%) BIPAC, 2006:     (80%) National Small Business Association, 2006:     (85%) AFL-CIO, 2006:     (17%) American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, 2006:     (0%) League of Conservation Voters, 2006:     (41%) Public Citizens Congress Watch, 2006:     (15%) Service Employees International Union, 2006:     (33%) United Auto Workers, 2006:     (14%)