WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in ruling that the state’s lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an aging pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel will stay in state court.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court that the Enbridge energy company waited too long to try to move the case to federal court.
The case is part of a messy legal dispute about a pipeline that has moved crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sued in state court in June 2019 seeking to void the easement that allows Enbridge to operate a 4.5-mile (6.4-kilometer) section of pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, which link Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Nessel, a Democrat, won a restraining order shutting down the pipeline from Ingham County Judge James Jamo in June 2020, although Enbridge was allowed to continue operations after meeting safety requirements.
Enbridge moved the lawsuit into federal court in 2021, arguing it affects U.S. and Canadian trade. But a three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Jamo in June 2024, finding that the company missed a 30-day deadline to change jurisdictions.
The pipeline at issue is called Line 5. Concerns over the section beneath the straits rupturing and causing a catastrophic spill have been growing since 2017, when Enbridge engineers revealed they had known about gaps in the section’s protective coating since 2014. A boat anchor damaged the section in 2018, intensifying fears of a spill.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, revoked the straits easement for Line 5 in 2020. Enbridge has filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the revocation.
The company is seeking permits to encase the section of pipeline beneath the straits in a protective tunnel. The Michigan Public Service Commission granted the relevant permits in 2023, but Enbridge still needs approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.
The pipeline is at the center of a legal dispute in Wisconsin as well. A federal judge in Madison last summer gave Enbridge three years to shut down part of Line 5 that runs across the Bad River Band of Lake Superior’s reservation. The company has proposed rerouting the pipeline around the reservation and has appealed the shutdown order to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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