Displaying items tagged: Enbridge

Michigan energy regulators have reopened a case involving Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline and the company’s request to build an underground tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac, calling for more information on the line’s current and future safety.

A little more than a year after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered Enbridge to shut down the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, the state retreated on its key lawsuit seeking to close the twin pipelines.

Business advocacy groups from around the Great Lakes argued this week that shutting down Line 5 would lead to a crisis in regional oil and gas markets, although pipeline critics say that forecast is overblown.

Enbridge Inc. plans to continue operating Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac until a tunnel is completed to house the twin oil and natural gas liquids pipelines, a company official said in a letter Tuesday to the Whitmer administration.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order in late September creating a long-term climate change plan calling for the state to be carbon neutral by 2050.

In a move sought for years by environmental advocates, tribes, and hospitality and tourism businesses, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this month notified Enbridge Inc. that it would no longer have the state’s permission to operate the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac.

The state is moving to terminate an agreement that has allowed the Line 5 pipeline to operate in the Straits of Mackinac for the past 67 years, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a bombshell environmental announcement Friday.

LANSING — Four Michigan tribes have been granted permission to participate in a regulatory case involving plans to tunnel the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, giving three of them an opportunity to formally assert their treaty rights this way for the first time.

An Ingham County Circuit Court judge has ordered Enbridge to immediately shut down the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, saying the company inadequately disclosed information about damage to support structures discovered last week. 

A coalition of businesses supporting the Line 5 pipeline’s closure in the Straits of Mackinac is backing Attorney General Dana Nessel’s effort to do just that after “significant damage” to the line was disclosed late last week.