The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in one of the lawsuits over Enbridge Energy's aging Line 5 pipeline.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court that Enbridge waited too long to try to move the case from Ingham County Circuit Court to federal court.
The case is part of a long and convoluted legal dispute about a pipeline that has moved crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953.
"This unanimous ruling from the United States Supreme Court makes emphatically clear that our lawsuit against Enbridge belongs before the state court, where we’ve argued since 2019 that Line 5 does not have a legal right to the Straits bottomlands,” said Attorney General Dana Nessel.
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 had 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. On appeal, SCOTUS agreed.
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 then filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the revocation in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, alleging that only the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has the authority to shut down pipelines.
That court found in favor of Enbridge.
"The Court can conclusively determine that the Pipeline Safety Act’s preemption provision covers state-issued pipeline shutdown orders and the kinds of safety standards imposed by Michigan," the court ruled. "The Pipeline Safety Act preemption provision is broad, and it would clearly cover a state’s attempt to shut down a pipeline because of safety concerns."
Michigan is appealing the decision before the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
Enbridge is seeking permits to encase the section of pipeline beneath the straits in a protective tunnel. The Michigan Public Service Commission, the state agency that oversees utilities, 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.
In a statement, Enbridge said it is committed to the safe operation of Line 5 and to working constructively with regulators and stakeholders.
"The fact remains that the safety of Line 5 is regulated exclusively by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). PHMSA conducts annual inspections and reviews of Line 5's operations across the Straits of Mackinaw and has consistently found the pipeline to be in compliance, identifying no safety issues that would warrant its shutdown."
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.
Editor's note: Enbridge is among Michigan Public's corporate sponsors.
