Oil Pipeline Lifeline for Canada Comes Under Siege in Michigan

• The Michigan Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case regarding the Line 5 pipeline tunnel permit, challenged by Tribal Nations and environmental groups.
• The legal challenge centers on whether the state’s Public Service Commission properly approved the tunnel, considering treaty rights and alternative solutions.
• This case is one of two major legal battles for Line 5, with another ongoing in the U.S. Supreme Court regarding a 2020 shutdown order.

Michigan’s highest court has yanked Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline back into the legal spotlight, agreeing Friday to hear Tribal Nations and environmental groups who say the state’s Public Service Commission broke the law when it signed off on a tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. At stake is more than just a construction permit—it’s the future of a pipeline that daily moves nearly 540,000 barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGLs) through the heart of the Great Lakes.

Line 5 begins at Superior, Wisconsin, where Canadian crude and NGLs flow off Enbridge’s Mainline system. From there, the line cuts across Michigan, supplying propane to the Upper Peninsula and feedstock to refineries in Detroit and Toledo, before ending in Sarnia, Ontario. That makes Michigan both a customer and a corridor, while Canada has a double stake—as both a producer shipping oil east and a consumer depending on Sarnia’s refineries.

For years, the dual pipes resting on the lakebed at the Straits have been branded a spill risk. Enbridge’s solution: bury them in a concrete-lined tunnel under the lakebed. Regulators gave that plan the green light in 2023, but Bay Mills Indian Community, other Tribal Nations, and advocacy groups argue the Commission excluded treaty rights and ignored safer alternatives like decommissioning the line.

The Michigan Supreme Court will now decide if the permit stands.

Meanwhile, a separate Line 5 battle rages in Washington. The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether the state’s 2020 shutdown order belongs in state or federal court, after Canada invoked a 1977 treaty to shield the pipeline.

For Enbridge, Line 5 is a lifeline linking Alberta oil fields to Canadian and Midwestern markets. For opponents, it’s a ticking time bomb under the world’s largest freshwater system. Either way, with Michigan’s highest court now in play, the stakes just jumped.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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