"The worst case scenario"

A 72 year old Great Lakes oil pipeline’s fate is mired in a legal quagmire. Anti-pipeline advocates say shut it down. The operator says it has a better plan. Michigan agrees, well sorta.

I recently read a news report where the Trump administration weighed in on a legal proceeding concerning a Michigan oil pipeline. Not just any pipeline, it was the now infamous Line 5 pipeline and the story caused me to reflect back to 2013.

It was 2013 when I first heard about the existence of an aged oil pipeline under Michigan’s renowned Straits of Mackinac. The pipeline began operating in 1953.

For reference, Dwight Eisenhower was president in 1953 and in 2013 Barack Obama was beginning his second presidential term.

While in Milwaukee in 2013 covering a Great Lakes conference, one of the non-profit advocates was pitching the pipeline issue hoping for a story. His goal was to bring attention to the pipeline’s age and the threat it posed to the treasured straits in the event of a rupture.

A quick interview with the advocate was scheduled and I was asked to secure a comment from the pipeline owner and operator, the Canadian company Enbridge Energy. Enbridge provided a statement that, from memory, was along the lines of the Line 5 pipeline has and continues to operate safely. The quick hit piece was a minor moment in a three day conference focused on restoration of the Great Lakes.

End of story I naively thought, but no, it was only the beginning.

Advocates were rapidly ramping up a campaign calling for the shutdown of Line 5 and their efforts snowballed as the years passed. By 2018 Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, agreed that Line 5 was a threat to be dealt with. But his solution was to sign an agreement with Enbridge allowing it to continue operating Line 5 while an underground tunnel was built that would house a new and safer replacement. Enbridge agreed to foot the bill.

New governor, new approach

In January of 2019 Democrat Gretchen Whitmer succeeded term-limited Snyder and she inherited the Line 5 issue. She had campaigned for governor in 2018 calling for it to be shut down and by late 2020, she formally notified Enbridge that she was revoking the authority that allowed the company to operate Line 5.

Enbridge was having none of that and responded saying the federal government regulates Line 5, not the state of Michigan. Lawsuits followed by Whitmer and Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel.

In June 2019 I interviewed Whitmer and asked if she was prepared for a lengthy legal battle on Line 5.

“I’ve been mindful of the fact that the worst thing for Michigan is that pipeline staying in the water for a longer period of time and protracted litigation and exposing ourselves to risk with an unknown, without making progress in terms of a tunnel or another alternative. I think that is the worst-case scenario,” Whitmer responded.

Eventually her “protracted litigation” worst-case scenario became reality that still exists today. And it became more complex as Canada invoked a treaty with the U.S contending the pipeline should continue to operate.

Anti-pipeline advocates hoped and lobbied for an intervention by environmentally-conscious President Biden, but no sale. Now, the Trump administration in a legal proceeding has said Line 5’s operation is a federal issue, not that of the state of Michigan.

The Line 5 issue surfaced by environmental activists in 2013 is still waiting for resolution as we near 2026. Its fate continues to be mired in federal and state courts. And the tunnel replacement agreed to by Michigan and Enbridge is still awaiting federal approval. If approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, likely under Trump, construction will take another five or more years.

My purpose here is not to take sides. If forced to, I’d quibble. Ideally Line 5 should be shutdown, period. It represents the past not the future. But the issue is politically charged so the tunnel replacement, while imperfect, is a reasonable compromise.

We are, however, in a polarized political era where compromise is a rare event and accepted norms of governance have been arbitrarily discarded.

So the Line 5 legal quagmire and Governor Whitmer’s worst case scenario remain alive and well five years after she ordered it shut down.

What a mess.

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