The nation’s highest bench has handed Michigan a procedural win in its quest to protect the Great Lakes from contamination by an aging oil pipeline.
In a ruling issued Wednesday, the Supreme Court found that Enbridge Energy had missed its window to bump litigation over its Line 5 pipeline from state to federal court, clearing the way for Michigan judges to have the final say over whether the state could order a shutdown of the project under a waterway that connects lakes Michigan and Huron.
“What this really means is the case can get back to being argued on the merits. It has been years of delay — which is clearly Enbridge’s strategy — but now the day in court is coming,” said Mike Shriberg, an environmental policy professor at the University of Michigan.
If the justices had issued an opinion favorable to Enbridge, allowing the case to instead move to federal court, Shriberg said, “states would have a much harder time protecting their waterways.”
