Michigan governor tells Enbridge to plan a Line 5 shutdown as Ontario’s crude line sits idle

TORONTO — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told Enbridge this week to stop treating a future tunnel as cover for the dual Line 5 pipes on the floor of the Straits of Mackinac and to pursue a shutdown “within months,” while the line itself is still down after an Aug. 25 rupture in Wisconsin.In a Sept. 9 letter to CEO Greg Ebel, Whitmer wrote that Enbridge “cannot use the promise of a tunnel to justify putting our most precious resources at risk by pumping oil through the Great Lakes for another decade,” and called the 73-year-old crossing a “ticking time bomb.” The same day she and EGLE director Phil Roos said Michigan must reopen environmental review of the tunnel permits after the July 31 Michigan Supreme Court ruling that vacated the Public Service Commission’s approval and ordered a broader look at harms and alternatives. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a federal record of decision in August; state-side construction remains blocked.Line 5 moves light crude, synthetic crude and natural gas liquids from Superior, Wis., across Michigan and back into Canada at Sarnia–Port Huron. It feeds more than half of the crude used in Ontario, all of the jet fuel at Toronto Pearson, product for Montreal, and refineries in Detroit and Toledo, and Enbridge says it covers about 55% of Michigan’s propane.Capacity is on the order of 540,000 barrels a day. The pipe has been offline since an unoccupied truck struck it at a northern Wisconsin site on Aug. 25 and released a large volume of NGLs; Enbridge has said crews are working to restore service around Saturday, Sept. 12..Line 5 still down a week after Wisconsin truck strike.Energy Minister Stephen Lecce said Whitmer’s letter is why Premier Doug Ford is right to push an all-Canadian line so Ontario is not “beholden to the insanity taking hold in America, be it the Democratic governor of Michigan or the president of the United States.” Lecce also said Canada should build a strategic petroleum reserve — it is the only G7 country without one. A U.S. federal court has already stopped Michigan from shutting Line 5 on its own, and the Trump administration supports Enbridge’s tunnel. Whitmer’s letter says energy-supply experts have concluded the market can adapt to a shutdown with notice; she did not name the studies in the public text.Until the Wisconsin bypass holds and Michigan’s new review runs, Ontario’s main inbound crude line is both contested in Lansing and physically down this week, and Queen’s Park still has no spare Canadian route and no reserve.

Michigan governor tells Enbridge to plan a Line 5 shutdown as Ontario’s crude line sits idle

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