The Keystone XL Pipeline

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204323904577040430486060086.ht

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"You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine." (John C. Maxwell from William Tansey)

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There are two very interesting articles in the WSJ today. One is by Peggy Noonan on the seriousness of a president (or presidential candidate). The other is by Daniel Henninger on the president abandoning labor (by delaying the Keystone XL pipeline). The Henninger article is attached (although, with the WSJ, I never know whether their ace "member policy" is going to limit the reader's view - I'm a "member" but the articles I attach from them are sometimes not complete because they are capitalists, or incompetent).

The Henninger article refers to president Obama's decision to delay building the Keystone XL pipeline as an abandonment of private labor. It's interesting that the state department delayed a decision on the new pipeline for three years and then, only after Keystone agreed to 59 modifications to their plan, agreed to support it. I believe that the president has delayed the pipeline decision to 2013 (year end? I don't really know).

In any case, the promise of blue collar jobs (Henninger names numbers/others name other numbers) is now out the window for two reasons: first, the jobs will at least not be there for another 18 months, and two, they probably will not be there at all because no private company is going to wait on such ridiculous delays. All Keystone has to do is direct the oil to Canada's west coast and sell it to China. To quote Henninger: "Meanwhile the American president shores up his environmental base in Hollywood and on campus. Perhaps our blue-collar workforce should consider emigrating to Canada."

What happened to our quest for more energy independence, or less dependence on unfriendly foreign sources? At 171 billion barrels (roughly) of oil reserves, Canada now ranks up there with Saudi Arabia. And, of course, Canada is right here and is (or was) friendly.

So, blue collar jobs (those that would be building the pipeline and, of course, the significant number of indirect jobs that would be created by that spending) are not important to president Obama. And, adding to our oil supplies is not important to the president. Then, it must be "votes." That's it, "votes." But here I must suggest that a responsible president would not be thinking about a second term and it appears that president Obama is. If so, has he looked at the Republican contenders? Enough said.

So, we have the wrong decision there. Peggy Noonan, who is really writing today about Herman Cain, starts off with a wonderful digression on Steve Jobs talking to Walter Isaacson about president Obama. Jobs starts with a theory of decline of American businesses (basically, once a company becomes a great success because of a great product(s), they then begin to value "salesmen" because they need to defend market share, and the decline starts). And, the theory applies to our "politics"because we've elevated "salesmen," people good in the room, facile creatures with good people skills - above people who love the product, the product in this case being good government.

Quoting Peggy Noonan: "You might say that the rise of Barack Obama was the triumph of a certain sort of salesman. He didn't know the product, but he was good at selling an image of the product ... Jobs supported him but was frustrated by him. He met with the president last year and urged him to move forward on visas for foreign students who earned an engineering degree in the U.S. Mr. Obama blandly replied that this was covered in his comprehensive immigration bill which Republicans were holding up. Jobs: 'The president is very smart, but he kept explaining to us reasons why things can't get done.' He does that a lot. Nothing is ever shovel ready with him. But leaders tell us how things will get done, how we can move forward. They can tease a small element out of a large bill, and get it passed."

I'm sure that Peggy Noonan was thinking about Lyndon Johnson or Ronald Reagan who could both do that very thing.

But, what we have here is a president looking to buy votes on an issue that calls into question even his own political judgement: does he really think the Republican party is going to put forth a candidate who can beat him? And, does he really think he can save some of the Hollywood support who (like Jobs was) are already disillusioned?

As Daniel Yergin has pointed out in his new book ("The Quest"), the U.S. has gone from importing roughly two-thirds of it's oil 30 years ago to about 50% now thru all sorts of positive programs. And, the largest source of U.S. imports now is Canada, a far less hostile provider that didn't even exist (as a major oil producer) 30 years ago.

This is a business school blog and I don't like to talk about politics but when a president intervenes in an oil situation to the detriment of supply, it helps no one. Three years and 59 changes to the new pipeline from Canada, and it still can't get approved?

Really?