Is Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer bent on destroying our economy?
By Robert Lyman, Dr. Jay Lehr |December 20th, 2021
On November 13, 2020, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered Enbridge Pipeline Company to shut down Line 5, its oil pipeline that crosses the Straights of Mackinac, the waterway connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. This would have halted the flow of oil within 180 days. A disruption of the pipeline system would adversely affect the flow of crude oil feedstocks to ten regional refineries, including those in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the US and Ontario and Quebec in Canada. It would result in a daily shortage of over 14 million gallons of gasoline and other transportation fuels, leaving oil companies scrambling to find other sources of supply and pushing fuel prices sharply higher. It also would lead to a significant propane shortage for consumers in northern Michigan.
The reason Governor Whitmer has given for her action is that she thinks Enbridge cannot be trusted to safely operate the pipeline and that it poses a risk of an oil spill at the Straights of Mackinaw that would gravely harm the Great Lakes. She is claiming that the easement granted by Michigan to Enbridge in 1953 was done in error and should now be revoked.
In response to Governor Whitmer’s order to shut down the line, Enbridge filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan seeking an injunction, based on the grounds that the attempt to shut down the line interferes with the U.S. federal government’s regulation of pipeline safety and foreign commerce in violation of federal laws and the U.S. Constitution. The Michigan Attorney General applied to have this matter dealt with instead by a Michigan court.
https://www.cfact.org/2021/12/20/is-michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-bent-on-destroying-our-economy/
