New Governor and Attorney General Act on Line 5

Positive News for a change!  On January 2nd Gov. Whitmer asked Attorney General Dana Nessel to conduct an independent review of Public Act 395 — the badly flawed law passed for Enbridge in the lame duck legislature to create a Mackinac Straits Utility Corridor Authority and keep Line 5 in the Mackinac Straits.

Attorney General Nessel has vowed to make her Line 5 review a top priority and for the first time in more than four years, decisions about Enbridge’s oil pipelines will be made by elected officials away from entanglements and influence from Enbridge and the oil industry.

This action by the governor and attorney general is an important step toward clearing the air on Line 5 and protecting the Great Lakes from an Enbridge Line 5 pipeline rupture. Public Act 395 created the fiction of solving the Line 5 problem but in reality, it laid the groundwork for backroom deals that would increase the risk for the Great Lakes and Michigan taxpayers.

For more than four years, former Gov. Snyder and former Attorney General Schuette have overseen a corrupt process intended to produce a good result for Enbridge. These maneuvers came at the expense of protecting the Great Lakes and Michigan’s economy from a high risk oil pipeline rupture in the Mackinac Straits. Under Snyder and Schuette, Enbridge was allowed to fund “independent” Line 5 studies under the auspices of the state that were actually conducted by the oil industry. Those studies predictably led to the current proposal by Snyder and Schuette to keep Line 5 operating in the Mackinac Straits with the possibility of eventually putting Enbridge’s pipelines inside a tunnel.

Gov. Whitmer stated during her campaign that climate change "is a real threat to our environment, our economy, and the health and wellbeing of the people of our state.”  With yesterdays decision by the new governor and backed by a new attorney general, Michigan can begin to reclaim its role as a protector of the Great Lakes.