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enbridge
If Harris Wants to Win Over Young Voters in Swing States, She’ll Say No to Line 5
America’s most dangerous crude oil pipeline threatens the future of the Great Lakes. That’s why young voters want it shut down.
Nov 01, 2024
Picture this: shimmery sunlight dancing on water. Deep blue crests over seafoam green before dissipating as waves meet the shore. The Chicago skyline gazes from a distance.
Running along Lake Michigan is one of my favorite pastimes at Northwestern University. We pride ourselves on having not one, but two beaches on campus that showcase the lake. The body of water is so wide it feels more like an ocean. The sound of the waves crashing onto the sand reminds me of the beaches back home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
But in the heart of the Great Lakes—where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron—America’s most dangerous crude oil pipeline threatens 700 miles of coastline and our climate future.
By incorporating pipeline shutdowns in her climate platform, Harris can send a clear message that our future doesn’t rely on fossil fuels and that people can raise their families and thrive in the Great Lakes region.
Growing up in the Bay Area showed me that addressing the climate crisis is my generation’s mission. When I was a junior in high school in 2020, California experienced the worst wildfire in state history. Orange haze blanketed everything. With the air quality index skyrocketing, I did not dare go outside. Friends had to evacuate their homes, and a teacher of mine saw their house burn down. I knew I wanted a career focused on the environment when I realized our wildfires would grow worse every year without action.
Coming here for college, I was excited to explore a new part of the country and catch a break from the wildfire season. People tout the Midwest as a haven from the climate crisis, but environmental issues are aplenty here as well.
As the presidential election date gets closer with states in the Midwest crucial for the Harris-Walz ticket to pick up, looming threats to our Great Lakes should gain wider attention, all because of North America’s most dangerous fossil fuel pipeline. The Great Lakes hold one-fifth of the world’s available fresh water supply, but under it lurks an oil pipeline called Line 5, operated by Canadian oil corporation Enbridge, which could ruin millions of people’s drinking water, mar Lake Michigan’s beauty, and devastate our communities.
Right in the heart of the Great Lakes, the Line 5 oil pipeline is accelerating our climate crisis as we speak. Seventy-one years ago, Enbridge built Line 5 right through Michigan and Wisconsin and in some of the most sensitive areas in the Great Lakes as a shortcut to reach Ontario, Canada. A spill from Line 5 could reach the Lake Michigan shoreline where myself and hundreds of thousands of people live and walk by everyday.
Enbridge has a sordid history when it comes to pipeline infrastructure. They are responsible for one of the largest inland oil spills in United States history from another pipeline they operate in Michigan. They didn’t shut the valve for 17 hours, and remediation efforts took five years. A similar spill from Line 5 would significantly threaten the Great Lakes and the people who call this region home. When burned, the oil in Line 5 contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than the three most polluting coal-fired power plants in the country combined
With a major election this year, young voters across Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota will be a crucial voting bloc. For many of us—myself included—it’s going to be our first time voting in a presidential election. Taking action for the environment is at the forefront of my generation’s concerns, which means that delivering a tangible victory to protect our climate and Great Lakes is absolutely necessary. Enbridge’s Line 5 must be shut down and decommissioned. While a Harris-Walz administration can deliver by making this action happen, U.S. President Joe Biden can do so now by revoking this outdated pipeline’s permit.
The Great Lakes aren’t just the source of drinking water for over 40 million people. They’re our identity, creating a major reason why many of us live in the Midwest to begin with. When governments are putting more energy toward keeping fossil fuel pipelines in the Great Lakes than preserving the water we drink from, swim in, and fish from, it gives the impression that our natural resources aren’t worth saving. We cannot afford to be complacent in a time of crisis, and we must do better.
Indigenous Tribes, environmental groups, small businesses, and local residents across the Great Lakes have been fighting Enbridge’s Line 5 for over a decade because of the severe risks it poses to our air, land, water, and health. Enbridge has been operating illegally in Michigan since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took action to stop the pipeline in 2020. And since 2012, Enbridge has been trespassing on the Bad River Band’s reservation in Wisconsin.
People are taking action against Line 5 by signing petitions, attending rallies in the U.S. and Canada, writing to their legislators, and emailing administration officials like U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for a shutdown. Volunteers have organized local businesses, faith communities, and Native Nations to attend teach-ins and community events and share information on Line 5’s dangers.
With Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket now, shutting down Line 5 should be a key issue in her policy platform. Gov. Whitmer won reelection handily after calling for a shutdown order, which shows that moving away from fossil fuels and decommissioning unsafe pipelines can be a winning electoral issue. Prioritizing a Line 5 shutdown could show that Harris can be one of the most pro-environment presidents in American history—her track record from California and her time in the Senate suggests that she prioritizes environmental policies like this. Shutting down the pipeline can set the stage for a new climate champion government.
A Line 5 shutdown is an achievable, easy win with real advantages. If climate is on the agenda for young voters in key Midwest states, Line 5 should be on the list of the vice president’s campaign priorities. By incorporating pipeline shutdowns in her climate platform, Harris can send a clear message that our future doesn’t rely on fossil fuels and that people can raise their families and thrive in the Great Lakes region. Young voters from the Midwest, like me, are firmly uniting behind one key message: Shut down Line 5.
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Line 5 Poses Catastrophic Risks—It’s Past Time President Biden Shut It Down
The president has a choice: side with local leaders working to protect their water and communities or side with a foreign company looking to increase their profits.
Jan 10, 2024
Any day now, the Biden administration could weigh in on the future of the most dangerous, outdated, and unnecessary oil pipeline in the country. We don’t need to wait for a lengthy legal process to play out while this ticking time bomb puts us at risk. President Biden can decommission and shut down Line 5, an aging oil pipeline running through the Great Lakes, by revoking its presidential permit before it’s too late.
Line 5 is owned by the Canadian company Enbridge, the biggest of Big Oil transporters. As a shortcut to get its oil to a Canadian refinery in Sarnia, Ontario—which receives 95% of the product—Line 5 cuts through Wisconsin and Michigan. While the Canadian government has protected the oil industry and Enbridge, the Biden Administration has the opportunity to side with the people of Michigan and Wisconsin instead of Big Oil.
Along its 645-mile route, Line 5 has failed 33 times already, spilling at least 1.1 million gallons of oil since 1968. Despite the risks and Enbridge’s historic failures as a pipeline operator, the Biden Administration, under pressure from Canada, has been silent on Line 5’s future. The pipeline continues to illegally operate through the Bad River Band's land in northern Wisconsin and the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan.
Line 5 is dubious engineering and a bad investment for Michigan and Wisconsin, built across the most vulnerable site for an oil spill in the entire Great Lakes watershed.
Canada’s government is lobbying the Biden Administration to keep the aging Line 5 operational, but local leaders have long called for it to be shut down. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit to shut Line 5 down because it runs through the Straits of Mackinac, threatening the world’s greatest freshwater source. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Wisconsin sided with the Bad River Band and ordered the pipeline off tribal lands where Line 5 trespasses through a sensitive tribal watershed. President Biden has a choice: side with local leaders working to protect their water and communities or side with a foreign company looking to increase their profits.
Communities and leaders are calling for Line 5 to be shut down, which can be done without raising prices at the pump. Rather than respect the law, Enbridge has proposed work around schemes that would continue to put communities at risk.
The Bad River Band tribe has demanded that Line 5 get off their land and out of their watershed—yet the pipeline remains upstream and still puts the tribe at risk. Instead of complying with the tribe’s demand, Enbridge proposes building a reroute that skirts the entire reservation. While the reroute would no longer cross through tribal land, it would be located upstream of the reservation, keeping the Tribal Community in harm’s way of future spills.
Enbridge has proposed the Great Lakes Tunnel Project to house the new Line 5 pipeline. It would be a concrete tunnel, 21 feet in diameter, that runs under the Straits of Mackinac. This is dubious engineering and a bad investment for Michigan and Wisconsin, built across the most vulnerable site for an oil spill in the entire Great Lakes watershed.
It’s clear that Enbridge is a bad actor that can’t be trusted, and has a terrible safety record of oil pipeline disasters. In addition to the 1.1 million gallons of toxic oil Line 5 has already spilled, Enbridge’s other disastrous tar sands pipeline, Line 3, ruptured four aquifers in northern Minnesota during construction alone, which Enbridge touts as the safest construction possible. In its Line 5 maintenance—or lack thereof—Enbridge has violated pipeline support standards and numerous other legal doctrines that protect us and our shared natural resources from the dangers of oil spills. In its 70 years of operating Line 5, Enbridge has demonstrated countless times that it simply doesn’t care about its repeated violations and instead would rather prioritize their profits than abiding by the law and protecting our communities.
There is no justification to keep Line 5 operating or extend its life when science—and the Biden administration’s own stated commitment to climate action require us to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. President Biden must step up and use his presidential authority to force Line 5 to shut down. It’s either us, the people who live in the Great Lakes region, or Big Oil.
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'Disastrous': Michigan Regulators Approve Enbridge Line 5 Expansion
"Today's decision is another notch in a long history of ignoring the rights of tribal nations," said one Indigenous leader.
Dec 01, 2023
Days after climate advocates applauded Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's signing of a package of clean energy bills that one campaigner said would "translate into better air, water, and health for everyone," state regulators took several steps back from a sustainable future as they approved a key permit for Enbridge's Line 5 expansion project beneath the Great Lakes.
In a 2-0 vote with one member abstaining, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) approved siting for the project, granting Canadian oil firm Enbridge permission to build a concrete tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac—which connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron—to house a four-mile section of its 645-mile petroleum pipeline.
The company can't break ground on the project without approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which isn't expected to announce its decision until 2026, but Indigenous tribes and advocacy groups that have fought for years to stop the pipeline from being built expressed outrage that the commission approved the permit despite well-documented objections.
All federally recognized tribes in Michigan have passed resolutions opposing Line 5, which safety experts have warned puts the Great Lakes at risk for a massive explosion and oil spill.
"Today's decision is another notch in a long history of ignoring the rights of tribal nations," said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community. "We must act now to protect the peoples of the Great Lakes from an oil spill, to lead our communities out of the fossil fuel era, and to preserve the shared lands and waters in Michigan for all of us."
Tribes have said the project would violate their treaty rights and that Enbridge has not proven it can operate the tunnel safely. The company's Line 6B oil spill in 2010 contaminated nearly 40 miles of the Kalamazoo River.
"Disappointment isn't a big enough word," Rebecca Liebing, attorney for Bay Mills, told Michigan Bridge after the MPSC vote was announced. "There's no ambiguity regarding how the tribes feel about this matter... We're not done fighting."
The lakes hold 84% of North America's surface freshwater, and the Line 5 expansion would be the largest underwater hazardous liquids tunnel ever completed, said the coalition Oil and Water Don't Mix (OWDM).
"With this action, the Michigan Public Service Commission is putting Michigan in uncharted, dangerous territory while ignoring warnings by independent industry experts who testified during the MPSC's proceedings," said Sean McBrearty, a campaign coordinator for OWDM. "Never before has an oil tunnel that also carries other hazardous liquids been built in one of the most ecologically sensitive spots on Earth."
McBrearty pointed out that Enbridge already operates other oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac, and said there is "an open question whether Enbridge intends to build the tunnel or is simply using the project as a diversion and delay from shutting down the existing twin oil pipelines."
"Moreover, the Line 5 tunnel will worsen the impacts of the climate crisis by adding 27 million metric tons of polluting and climate altering carbon into the atmosphere, equivalent to 10 coal-fired power plants," said McBrearty, calling on President Joe Biden to revoke the presidential permit for Line 5.
Whitmer campaigned on closing down Line 5, but Enbridge has claimed the governor has no authority to shut down its pipelines because it runs between the U.S. and Canada and is subject to federal regulations.
A spokesperson for the governor toldMichigan Bridge that Whitmer is reviewing the MPSC's decision and that her goal "has always been getting the pipelines out of the water as quickly as possible."
Christopher Clark, senior attorney for Earthjustice, which represented Bay Mills as it presented its case objecting to Line 5 to the MPSC, said the commission ignored "the concerns of tribal communities in favor of the profit of a fossil fuel company."
"The evidence before the commission demonstrated that the proposed tunnel would put the Great Lakes region at serious risk and profoundly endanger the identity and lifeways of the Bay Mills Indian Community, a sovereign tribal nation whose relationship to these waters preexists the United States," said Clark. "We will use every open avenue to shut down Line 5 in order to avert an environmental catastrophe and slow the unthinkable impacts of climate change.”Keep ReadingShow Less
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