Right now coal is still king. Coal provides 50% of the electricity production for the U.S. while natural gas provides about 20% of that production.

Now, however, with an energy bill in Congress, the battle lines are being drawn between the coal and natural gas companies. Each side is marshaling an army of lobbyists to descend upon Congress. Each side will make pitches to Congress to gain favor for their companies.

If you think the bank lobbyists don't have any clout, think again. This time they beat down Congress on the new housing legislation. President Obama just looked the other way.

What is this all about anyway? When President Obama signed the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, there was a big and important piece of the bill missing. If you recall, President Obama tooted his horn about the housing bill, but he did not ensure that it had a "cramdown provision" in it, a provision that would have given judges the power to lower the amount owed on a home loan.

Having secured $85 billion in special loans from the United States taxpayer, American International Group (NYSE: AIG) has suspended its lobbying efforts in response to widespread criticism.

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that AIG spent $6.6m on in-house lobbying activists and another $768,000 on outside lobbying consultants so far this year.

The move comes in the wake of public outrage over AIG's perceived influence on elected officials and its decision to blow nearly half a million dollars on a luxury retreat for executives. But you have to admit, the publicity stunt of canceling the lobbying after the check has cleared is a wonderfully manipulative and hypocritical gesture.

AIG's lobbyists already scored $85 billion of our money. The scary thing was that they still wanted to try for more. AIG will still be keeping its government affairs office open, which is remarkable given that AIG is now essentially a subsidiary of the US government.

The ridiculous story published by the New York times yesterday regarding John McCain's encounters with a Washington lobbyist offered little to it's readers or the voting American public. It was a waste of time on talk shows and the broader media coverage it received shows how petty election politics can be.

Every official in Washington is constantly being bombarded by thousands of lobbyist's all the time and someone in McCains position (and Obama's and Clinton's) get no relief. If his wife is not griping when he gets closer to some then others and they happen to be attractive too, we have nothing to say about it, unless it crosses some legal or ethical boundary.

McCain was unhappy. I was unhappy and most pundits I listened to thought as much of the story as I did. However, I might have handled it with some good humor. McCain should have issued a press release with pictures of the top 100 best looking lobbyists (male and female) that he has met with over the past five years. Let them run that in the New Yorks Times. Now that would spark huge readership.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money.

"I think eBay is great!" one Louisiana state senator told the New York Times. Another smiled broadly while voting for Louisiana Senate Bill 642, which exempted eBay and other internet businesses from law requiring licenses for auctioneers. It's just one indication of eBay's powerful lobbyists, working hard from California to Baton Rouge to make sure its sellers don't have to follow rules meant for pawn brokers, ticket scalpers and auction houses (despite its description of its services as "auctions").

The company, protecting its $500 million in quarterly listing fees, is acting in what the Times calls a "savvy, resourceful," "remarkably successful," "grass roots" and "not shy" manner to stop adverse legislation. Interestingly, the company uses email missives much like the one Meg Whitman sent on Friday, but on a more localized level, to engage its users in the fight against restrictive legislation.

Still more intriguing is the company's stance on legislation meant to reduce fraud on its site; according to the Times, eBay opposes anti-fraud regulations as the company "sees its online community as self-regulating."