Michigan’s Democratic leaders, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, are quietly continuing a legal battle to shut down a major oil pipeline — even as the rise in gas prices increasingly complicates the politics of the fight.
The dispute over Line 5, an oil and natural gas pipeline running between Michigan and Canada, has dragged on for years, with Whitmer moving unsuccessfully last year to order the pipeline to cease operations.
But the fight has attracted more attention as Democrats face growing political pressure over spiking prices at the pump.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the state chambers of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin filed an amicus brief last week in the lawsuit over whether the pipeline can continue operations.
The chambers argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy embargoes had raised the stakes in the debate over whether oil and gas could continue to flow through a key section of the pipeline.
“Shutting down the pipeline would carry tremendous negative consequences for the Chambers’ members and the economies of the United States and Canada,” lawyers for the business organizations wrote in the brief. “Such a shutdown would constrain an already disrupted energy supply, an especially problematic development given recent decisions related to importation of petroleum products from Russia.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Chamber took aim at Whitmer, who is running for reelection this year, over her continued pursuit of a Line 5 closure.
“Gov. Whitmer is wrong to seek the shutdown of Line 5. Now more than ever, consumers and businesses need access to reliable and affordable energy,” said Christopher Guith, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber’s Global Energy Institute.
And Ohio Lt. Gov. John Husted, a Republican, said this week that Michigan’s leaders were being “unreasonable and irresponsible” in their efforts to close the line.
The line transports as much as 540,000 barrels per day of light crude oil and natural gas liquids, according to Enbridge, the company that operates the pipeline.
Built in 1953, the pipeline supplies the majority of Michigan’s propane and serves as a key energy source for the entire region.
A portion of the pipeline that funnels oil and gas under the Straits of Mackinac has recently drawn the scrutiny of environmentalists, who warn of the risk of an oil spill in the Great Lakes, although Enbridge has downplayed that risk by noting that the pipeline has not once leaked into the lakes during its decades of operation.
Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Democratic attorney general, said last week that the line’s continued operation is “a bigger threat than ever.”
“We know that the impact on gas prices in the state of Michigan would be incredibly minimal,” Nessel said last week of the prospect of shutting down the line.
Whether the impact would be minimal is the subject of debate.
While groups aligned with environmentalists say gas prices would not noticeably rise if the pipeline was taken offline, other experts predict a more significant impact.
An analysis written earlier this year by Consumer Energy Alliance suggested that gas prices in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania would rise somewhere between 9.47% and 11.66% “independent of any other market conditions,” such as the war in Ukraine, if the line were shut down.
Canadian officials have raised alarms about the threat of shutting down a key pipeline pumping fuel over their border. In October, Canadian leaders invoked a provision of a 1977 treaty with the United States that bans either party from obstructing cross-border fuel transfers and requested negotiations with Biden administration officials.
The increased focus on the Line 5 lawsuit comes as the Biden administration works to counter criticism of its domestic energy agenda. President Joe Biden said earlier this month that “it’s simply not true” that his administration had hampered domestic energy production amid public frustration over the rising cost of fuel.
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Critics point to the Biden administration’s efforts to pause new leases on federal land for energy producers as well as its decision last year to revoke a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, an oil line that was set to run from Canada to Nebraska.
The Biden administration had ordered an environmental review of the portion of Line 5 that runs under the Straits of Mackinac, which Enbridge had hoped to reconstruct.
White House officials in November defended the review as necessary and standard for such a project, which environmentalists vehemently oppose.
