Fabulous climate news was announced today in Michigan, as Gov. Whitmer has finally taken a decisive step to shut down Line 5. A report by Keith Matheny just published in the Detroit Free Press provides the key details:
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Department of Natural Resources Director Dan Eichinger on Friday notified Enbridge that a 1953 easement allowing it to operate dual pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac to transport petroleum and other products is being revoked and terminated.
Whitmer and Eichinger also filed a lawsuit asking the Ingham County Circuit Court to recognize the validity of this action, citing violation of the public trust doctrine, given the unreasonable risk that continued operation of the dual pipelines poses to the Great Lakes.
The anti-fossil-fuel coalition through which much citizen opposition to Line 5 has been organized, Oil and Water Don’t Mix, offers more context from an activist perspective:
Citizens groups are widely celebrating Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s historic announcement today that she is taking action permanently revoking Enbridge’s Line 5 easement as she puts Michigan on a legal footing to end the threat of a catastrophic oil pipeline failure in the Great Lakes.
Enbridge now has 180 days to decommission the pipelines, and to appeal this decision. Nor is it absolutely certain that their massive tunnel proposal (to be constructed as a replacement for Line 5) will be rejected. But as Mike Shriberg, regional executive director of the Great Lakes Regional Center of the National Wildlife Federation, is quoted in the Freep article,
Enbridge could still go ahead with their current tunnel proposal, but it's going to be much harder to prove to regulators there’s a need if Line 5 is already shut down.
It could simply be coincidence, but I suspect that the recent election results that flipped the Michigan Supreme Court to a 4-3 Democratic lean—with the new justice, Elizabeth Welch, being a former president of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters—also give Gov. Whitmer and AG Dana Nessel a much better chance of fulfilling their campaign promises to shut down Line 5. After some disappointing results for Michigan in this month’s election, this news is a welcome reminder of the important gains we did make, now and in 2018.