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During the Houston stop on last week’s tour, NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons joined Veriten’s weekly podcast, “C.O.B. Tuesday.”

On the show, he talked energy, taxes, trade certainty, workforce, immigration reform and more.

What’s going on: On day nine of the 10-day, 12th annual tour, when Timmons caught up with podcast hosts Maynard Holt and Mike Bradley, he and an NAM contingent were in Houston, Texas.

• Today, “our focus is energy,” Timmons said. “[M]anufacturers make energy, and manufacturers use energy. In fact, we use 30% of the nation’s energy output. So, making sure that we have an affordable, reliable supply of energy as well as the ability to deliver that energy is vitally important to our future success.”
• He talked also about tax reform, saying he’s heard repeatedly from manufacturers that the 2017 tax reforms—first announced by President Trump at an NAM board meeting—were “rocket fuel” for manufacturing.
• In the four years that followed, we saw “more investment in manufacturing … more job creation in manufacturing and … more wage growth.”

Getting it all done again: Some of the pro-growth provisions from that “rocket fuel” expired or were set to expire at the end of last year, jeopardizing continued manufacturing success and growth—so the NAM went to work getting them extended, Timmons said.

• “In 2025, we were faced with a crossroads of sorts. The president proposed not only renewing all of those provisions but also strengthening some of them. We worked really hard, and we got that done.” 

On filling open jobs: Timmons also discussed manufacturing’s persistent workforce shortage—even though in 2024, manufacturing workers in the U.S. made an average of $106,691.

• “We have 433,000 open jobs in the sector today,” Timmons continued. “That number is going to grow to 2 million by the year 2033.”
• One of the fixes to the problem: training. “It used to be that people would just flock to any business, especially manufacturers. But now we’ve got an obligation to train and upskill our workers,” he said.
• Another solution is immigration reform. We need a way “to get those folks here who want to perhaps stay for a season to help our farmers with their agricultural work,” he said, as well as “the longer-term temporary employees for manufacturing operations.”

The AI effect: Timmons also touched on artificial intelligence and the concern of some that it will replace human workers.

• “AI is and will be a force for good,” he said. “You still need humans; you just need them in a different way. … [Y]ou need technicians that are going to be able to effectively operate AI systems and the robotics that are associated with it.”

Permitting reform now: Timmons spoke also about a longtime NAM priority: permitting reform.

• If reforms had been made years ago, President Biden’s liquefied natural gas export permitting ban “would not have happened,” Timmons said, nor would the current administration’s ban on new wind energy projects.
• “Ultimately, what we want to see is a much more expeditious way of getting to either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ [on energy projects],” Timmons said. “We’re not saying ‘permit everything.’ We understand there’s going to be some issues, but let’s get to a quick ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”