WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court sided with Michigan on Wednesday, ruling that the state’s lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of aging pipeline beneath the Great Lakes waterway will stay in state court.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor told the court unanimously that Enbridge Energy had waited too long to try to move the case to federal court.
The case is part of a messy legal dispute involving a pipeline that has carried crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit in state court in June 2019, seeking to revoke an easement that allows Enbridge to operate a 4.5-mile (6.4-kilometer) stretch of pipeline beneath the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Nessel, a Democrat, obtained a restraining order from Ingham County Judge James Jamo in June 2020 to shut down the pipeline, although Enbridge was allowed to continue operating after meeting safety requirements.
Enbridge filed the lawsuit in federal court in 2021, arguing that it affected trade between the United States and Canada. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sent the case back to Jamo in June 2024, finding that the company missed a 30-day deadline to change jurisdictions.
The affected pipeline is known as Line 5. Concerns that a portion of the pipeline beneath the channel could rupture and cause a catastrophic leak have grown since 2017, when Enbridge engineers revealed they had known about gaps in the protective coating on that section since 2014. An anchor damaged that section in 2018, fueling fears of a leak.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources under Governor Gretchen Whitmer revoked Line 5’s channel easement in 2020. Enbridge filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the revocation.
Enbridge won a federal judge’s ruling blocking the move, but Whitmer, a Democrat, has appealed to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In March, the Supreme Court rejected Whitmer’s appeal, stating that she could not be sued in federal court.
It’s unclear how the federal ruling blocking Whitmer’s revocation attempt will affect Nessel’s case in state court. The company said in a statement that the judge in Whitmer’s case had ruled that federal regulators, not the state, were responsible for Line 5’s safety and that they had found no issues that would require shutting down the line.
But Nessel said the case is far from over. “This unanimous ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court makes clear that our lawsuit against Enbridge should be brought in state court, where we have been arguing since 2019 that Line 5 has no legal rights to the Channel Lowlands,” she said in a statement.
Enbridge is also seeking permission to enclose portions of the pipeline beneath the strait in protective tunnels. The Michigan Public Service Commission issued a related permit in 2023, but environmental groups and a coalition of Michigan tribes have filed a lawsuit seeking to revoke the tunnel’s state permit. The state Supreme Court is hearing the case.
Enbridge also needs approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.
The pipeline is also at the center of another legal dispute in Wisconsin. Last summer, a federal judge in Madison ordered Enbridge to shut down part of Line 5 across the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Reservation within three years. The company has appealed the stop-work order to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but began rerouting around the reservation in February.
Bad River and environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the state to stop the work, saying regulators underestimated the damage the diversion would cause. That case is also pending.
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Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report from Madison, Wisconsin.
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