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enbridge line 5
Indigenous and Climate Campaigners Decry 'Deep Betrayal' as Michigan Issues Key Enbridge Line 5 Permits
State regulators said the permits for a tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac would have "significant impacts" on wildlife and sacred Indigenous burial grounds, but issued them nonetheless.
Jul 16, 2026
Anti-fossil fuel campaigners on Wednesday emphasized that Michigan state regulators had issued key permits for the Enbridge Line 5 tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac on the same day that "wildfire smoke from climate change blotted out the Mackinac Bridge from view" and as the US and other countries faced extreme heatwaves.
Despite the mounting evidence that—as energy and climate experts have long warned—continued fossil fuel extraction is heating the planet and causing dangerous extreme weather, Michigan's Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy handed down a permit Wednesday to allow the Canadian company Enbridge to construct a tunnel that EGLE officials acknowledged will likely have "significant impacts" on threatened or endangered species and Indigenous burial ground in the Straits.
“The magnitude of impacts to recognized historic and cultural values of this proposed project exceeds that of any other that EGLE has reviewed,” said EGLE in its statement on the permits.
Enbridge has sought to build a tunnel around its Line 5 pipeline in the Straits for years, following a massive oil spill from its Line 6B pipeline in the Kalamazoo River. Line 5 has been struck by ships' anchors numerous times, heightening concerns.
EGLE said in its explanation that the oil spill risk was found to be "unacceptable" and that the need for the tunnel outweighed its risks.
But opponents who have argued that Line 5 should be permanently shut down, including the Bay Mills Indian Community, condemned the agency for "rewarding" Enbridge with new permits even after its fossil fuel infrastructure has caused hazardous oil spills.
“Enbridge has spilled oil, committed safety violations, trespassed on lands, shattered ecosystems, pierced aquifers, violated our laws, and repeatedly shown contempt for tribal sovereignty," said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community. "They have left devastation in their wake, and now they’re being rewarded with responsibility over one of the most precious and sacred resources in our state. The Great Lakes are not safe in their hands. This decision is a deep betrayal of our Great Lake State, and we will confront it immediately, fiercely, and without hesitation.”
The state Department of Natural Resources also issued a permit following EGLE's decision, granting permission for the tunnel despite its potential impact on rare plants and animal habitats.
According to Michigan Bridge, about 1.53 acres of wetlands in Mackinac County would be impacted by the tunnel project, as well as 0.17 acres of Lake Michigan bottomlands in Emmet County, where Enbridge is expected to build a water intake structure.
The environmental legal organization Earthjustice, which has helped represent the Bay Mills Indian Community in its legal challenges against Enbridge, said that with the permits, the company will "transform the Straits of Mackinac into an industrial construction zone for at least six years, destroying views, displacing wildlife, and interrupting tourism dollars."
“Our environmental laws, the looming climate crisis, and simple common sense tells us that an oil pipeline doesn’t belong in the Great Lakes,” said Earthjustice managing attorney Debbie Chizewer. “Today’s decision is a setback, but we’re not giving up. A future without oil in the Great Lakes is still possible.”
EGLE is also expected to rule by September 30 on an Enbridge request to discharge millions of gallons of treated wastewater per day into Lake Michigan while it is constructing the tunnel, and the Michigan Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit brought by four Tribal Nations, including Bay Mills, alleging that the Michigan Public Service Commission improperly issued a key tunnel permit in 2023.
The state is also fighting Enbridge over Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's 2020 order to shut down Line 5 over oil spill concerns. She had campaigned in 2018 on a promise to shut down the pipeline. A federal judge ruled last year that the state had no authority to terminate the use of the pipeline, and the state appealed that ruling.
Advocates expressed anger on Wednesday at Whitmer as her government issued the permits.
“It’s incredibly disappointing that a governor who ran on a commitment to the climate and protecting the Great Lakes has now decided to instead endorse a Canadian industrial tunnel project that still threatens the Great Lakes and will contribute fossil fuels to the climate,” David Holtz, coalition coordinator for the anti-Line 5 group Oil & Water Don’t Mix, told Bridge Michigan.
David Gover, managing attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, said that "the Straits of Mackinac are not a piece of Enbridge oil infrastructure; they are the heart of creation for Anishinaabe people and a vital source of life for all who depend on the Great Lakes."
“We will pursue every legal avenue," Gover said, "to defend treaty rights, protect drinking water, and preserve tribal lifeways from another Enbridge disaster.”
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Fighting Together for Life, Water, and Land: From Line 5 to Gaza
The deep connections between Line 5 and Gaza serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for united, organized resistance to defend justice, the land, and human and nonhuman life.
Jul 17, 2025
In the United States, we are fighting a rapid descent into authoritarianism that is already having disastrous consequences for people, communities, and the environment. At the same time, grassroots movements across the globe are fighting to defend life, water, and land. These fights may seem worlds apart, but they are in fact intertwined at their roots. Here we will explore two examples that are not unique, but have been chosen because they make visible the underlying structural and political forces that link seemingly disparate struggles across the world. We believe that recognizing these links is necessary for building the powerful coalitions we need to resist in these critical times.
In Wisconsin, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa—a sovereign Indigenous nation—is leading a battle that resonates far beyond its borders. In coalition with local, national, and international organizations and activists, the Band is saying no to the exploitation of its land and people by fossil fuel giants; saying no to pipelines that endanger waterways, wetlands, and wild rice beds essential to their culture and survival; and saying no to fossil fuel extraction that accelerates the climate crisis.
At the heart of this struggle lies Enbridge’s Line 5—a 645-mile pipeline transporting crude oil and natural gas liquids from Wisconsin to Ontario. Line 5 does not stand alone but is linked to a much larger network of pipelines that begin in the tar sands fields of Canada and transport one of the dirtiest forms of fossil fuel. The aging Line 5 cuts directly through the Bad River Band’s reservation, but easements for this pipeline expired in 2013. Enbridge now plans to reroute the pipeline around the reservation despite years of legal battles and overwhelming public opposition. Enbridge has a well-documented history of spills and environmental destruction and, as an investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline, supported the violent attacks on Indigenous activists at Standing Rock. Enbridge’s reroute of Line 5 remains a direct threat to fragile ecosystems and Indigenous sovereignty.
At the same time, thousands of miles away, millions of Palestinians are being displaced and tens of thousands killed by an all-out military assault in Gaza that targets the entire population and infrastructure for life. This is accompanied by accelerating state-supported violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. The relentless bombings, mass displacement, deliberate starvation, and destruction of civilian life carried out by Israel and the U.S. against the Palestinian people amounts not to a conventional war but to genocide. The U.S. and Israel are now openly discussing a plan to permanently remove Palestinians and take over Gaza and the West Bank, completing a process of ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing for over 100 years.
What links a battle over a pipeline in Wisconsin to the crisis in Gaza and the West Bank? Everything. The fight against Line 5 isn’t merely about fossil fuels—it’s a stand against a global system of colonialism, militarism, and capitalism that drives the climate crisis. The ethnic cleansing and genocide directed at Palestinians represent the advancement of a long-term colonial project that uses violence and militarism to secure access to land and resources. In a critical moment when we face a rising tide of fascism in the U.S. and abroad, the deep connections between Line 5 and Gaza serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for united, organized resistance to defend justice, the land, and human and nonhuman life.
Colonialism and Control: From Wisconsin to Gaza
Colonialism is about dominance and control. Whether imposed on Indigenous nations in the United States or on Palestinians abroad, its purpose is to grant powerful states and corporations unfettered access to land and resources, fueling profits and increased power for ruling elites.
In Gaza—and increasingly in the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and Syria—the brutal legacy of settler colonialism is on display. Since at least 1947, Israel has pursued colonization in Palestine, displacing native inhabitants and instituting an apartheid system to control those who remain. Military force and state-sponsored violence have systematically stripped Palestinians of their land, water, property, and freedom, a process bolstered by political, financial, and military support from Western powers. In particular, Israel is critical to strategic U.S. military and political presence in the Middle East; in other words, it is central to U.S. imperialism. The current crisis in Gaza is an escalation of this long-term project.
Climate justice movements in the U.S. must recognize not only the moral imperative but the strategic necessity of centering struggles for immigrant rights, Indigenous and Palestinian sovereignty, and struggles against militarism and fascism.
The systems at work in Gaza are the same as those that drive projects like Line 5. The history of the U.S. is one of colonial expansion, of violently appropriating land and resources from native inhabitants and transferring it to the U.S. government and settlers. Even now, the U.S. government and powerful corporate interests ignore the rights of Indigenous sovereign nations and ram through pipelines, mines, and other projects despite their environmental and social dangers and opposition from tribes. Projects like Line 5 are a continuation of a multi-century colonial project that stretches from from the Indian Wars in the 19th century to the militarized response to the Indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock.
Whether it manifests through violent repression of protest or the displacement of entire ethnic groups, the same colonial logic is at work. Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza aims to secure access to land, water, and offshore natural gas reserves for themselves and their corporate and political allies. The same drive for control and access to resources underpins Line 5, linking these two struggles in a broader fight against colonialism, exploitation, and global corporate power.
Militarism, Capitalism, and Global Solidarity
Militarism fuels colonialism. It is also essential to the fossil fuel industry, the core driver of the climate crisis. The U.S. military extends across an estimated 750 overseas bases in 80 countries. This web of influence props up transnational fossil fuel networks that depend on protection and the threat of force to extract and transport oil and gas around the globe. The paramilitary response to activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline and Line 3 in Minnesota are local examples that illustrate this relationship. The U.S. invests $800 billion into the military each year, money that could be spent on the public good but is instead used to underwrite a global system of extraction and exploitation.
The U.S. military also contributes to the climate crisis in more direct ways. The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than many nations. Wars and conflict contribute significantly to carbon emissions and also drive widespread environmental devastation that destroys local livelihoods. U.S. military bases are ranked as among the most polluted in the world, damaging land and water in surrounding areas with past nuclear testing and toxic chemicals.
Militarism is also deeply intertwined with corporate interests. Big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense, and Raytheon profit from the devastation in Gaza. Such contractors are also deeply intertwined with private security firms like Blackrock. These security firms are deployed by fossil fuel companies to protect fossil fuel infrastructure projects like Line 5, harming Indigenous communities and intensifying climate collapse. In short, the U.S. military reinforces a system that prizes profit over human life.
The struggles in Gaza and against Line 5 are two sides of the same coin. Palestinians resisting occupation and Indigenous nations opposing pipelines face the same force: militarized, transnational government-corporate alliances. Their fight is not solely for their own physical and cultural survival—it is a battle for justice and freedom for all people and the planet.
Climate Chaos, Fascism, and Migration
The climate crisis is inseparable from the forces of militarism, colonialism, and capitalism. Climate change is also contributing to a related crisis—the rise of fascism and the demonization of immigrants.
As global temperatures climb, environmental disasters and unpredictability increase, contributing to economic destabilization and a general sense of uncertainty and fear. This creates an ideal breeding ground for fascist ideologies that promise greater security (for some) through the exercise of state control, brute strength, and the scapegoating of the vulnerable—all while siphoning money and power to corporations. Climate change also drives the displacement of people, as extreme heat, flooding, drought, and other environmental disasters force entire regions into unlivable conditions. In 2022 alone, over 43 million people were displaced by climate-related events, from hurricanes and floods to shifts in agricultural viability. This number is set to grow, creating an ever-growing wave of climate refugees.
Indigenous and Palestinian struggles confront the same systems that aim to strengthen corporate and elite interests at the expense of everyday people and vulnerable populations, further deepening global inequality.
Rather than addressing the root causes of climate change, developing plans for adaptation that serve the public good, or offering refuge to those forced to migrate, many governments worldwide are responding with authoritarian measures. Fascist leaders paint climate refugees as threats, blaming migrants and marginalized communities for crises they did not create. In the U.S., we see this in the criminalization of immigration, mass deportation, the expansion of border walls, and the deployment of surveillance technologies—many of which were first developed in Israel and tested on Palestinians. These policies only worsen human suffering while deflecting attention from the real culprits: fossil fuel corporations, militarism, and capitalist greed.
These rising authoritarian impulses are deeply linked to the fight against Line 5 and resistance to Israel’s expansion. Indigenous and Palestinian struggles confront the same systems that aim to strengthen corporate and elite interests at the expense of everyday people and vulnerable populations, further deepening global inequality.
A Call to Action: Building Power to Fight Back
The November 2024 election and turn toward fascism in the U.S. have underscored the urgency of grassroots resistance. Corporate and right-wing forces are aligning in unprecedented ways, fueled by economic inequality, xenophobia, fear, and disinformation. Authoritarian regimes in the U.S. and abroad, including Israel, are poised to further expand corporate power, fossil fuel extraction, militarism, and state oppression in frightening ways. This convergence poses an escalating threat to human communities and the natural world.
The fight against Line 5, led by the Bad River Band, and the global solidarity movement for Palestine both stand at the forefront of grassroots resistance to these converging forces. Broadening our lens, we can see such resistance taking place all over the world: in the anti-pipeline struggles in East Africa, the efforts of Indigenous communities in the Amazon to protect their land and way of life, and the bravery of anti-mining activists in El Salvador, to name just a few examples. These movements remind us that these battles in specific places are part of a broader struggle against interconnected systems of oppression—something that has long been recognized by local communities and Indigenous-led organizations worldwide.
Our organizing must be both intersectional and international. We must connect struggles that have too often been treated in isolation. The same forces that drive the expansion of Line 5 and the attacks on Palestinian life are at work in militarized occupations and conflicts abroad, the construction of border walls and the criminalization of migrants, and the climate crisis itself. By challenging these forces at home, and acting in solidarity with those abroad, we strike at the roots of a global system of exploitation and oppression.
Climate justice movements in the U.S. must recognize not only the moral imperative but the strategic necessity of centering struggles for immigrant rights, Indigenous and Palestinian sovereignty, and struggles against militarism and fascism. We must forge alliances with diverse movements from Wisconsin to East Africa to the Philippines, recognizing that we succeed or fail together. Despite these dangerous and difficult times, a different world is possible when we unite and act as one.
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Trump Moves to Fast-Track 100+ Dirty Fossil Fuel Permits Under 'Fake' Energy Emergency
"Trump's promise to cut Americans' energy bills is a lie," said one campaigner.
Feb 19, 2025
With more than 100 permits for oil pipeline projects and gas-fired power plants likely to be fast-tracked under U.S. President Donald Trump's so-called "energy emergency" declaration, consumer advocates on Wednesday called on lawmakers and state officials to stand up to the president's "bullying" and block his efforts to build pollution-causing fossil fuel projects—and slow clean energy progress.
"Trump's declaration of a sham energy emergency attempts to set into motion the weaponization of national security law to dismantle generations of public health and safety protections," said Tyler Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program. "The ultrawealthy fossil fuel executives who donated huge sums to Trump's campaign see this fraudulent emergency declaration as an opportunity to destroy the remarkable progress of wind and solar development, while maximizing fossil fuel exports and domestic consumption."
Trump signed a day-one executive order claiming that the U.S. faces an "energy emergency" and must "unleash" fossil fuel production—which has already been on the rise in recent years despite clear warnings from scientists that oil, gas, and coal extraction must end in order to avoid catastrophic planetary hearing.
"Trump's national energy emergency is a sham."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited that order in recent days when it created a new "emergency" designation for infrastructure project permits, paving the way for officials to push forward nearly 700 pending applications, including more than 100 for fossil fuel projects.
Clean Water Action told The New York Times that one major project it has fought against, Canadian firm Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline, which the company wants to build under the Mackinac Straits, could threaten the Great Lakes and tens of millions of people who rely on them for drinking water.
"If this is pushed through on an emergency permit, the implications of an oil spill if there's an explosion or something during tunnel construction is that over 700 miles of Great Lakes shoreline could be at risk," Sean McBrearty, Michigan policy director for Clean Water Action, told the Times.
"If approved, this project will risk our fresh water and the millions of people who rely on it for drinking, jobs, and tourism in exchange for a foreign oil company's profits," added McBrearty.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)—who earlier this month introduced a resolution challenging Trump's emergency declaration—held a Capitol Hill press conference with environmental leaders.
"We are producing more energy now than at any other point in our history, and the U.S. is the envy of the world when it comes to energy innovation and production," Kaine said at the event. "The passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act have accelerated clean energy projects and created jobs, and we are on an amazing trajectory."
"Trump's sham emergency threatens to screw all of that up," Kaine added. "Why? Because he'd rather benefit Big Oil and suspend environmental protections than lower costs and create jobs for the American people. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting to terminate President Trump's emergency."
Heinrich said: "Trump's fake emergency declaration is causing enormous uncertainty. If you're thinking about opening a new factory, you don't know what your tax structure will be in the next 12 months. If you're trying to site and build a new transmission line, the federal agencies you work with just had a ton of their expert staff sacked, making it more difficult to get a permit."
"This is going to kill skilled trades jobs and drive up the cost of your electricity bills by as much at $480 a year by 2030," the senator added. "Trump's war on affordable, American-made energy is killing jobs and raising costs on working families."
Slocum urged senators to back Kaine and Heinrich's resolution.
"Trump's promise to cut Americans' energy bills is a lie, as every action under the fraudulent energy emergency would subject Americans to higher energy burdens," he said on Wednesday. "Having senators support Senate Joint Resolution 10 is a first step, but every governor of states in the Northeast and West Coast targeted by Trump's phony emergency order needs to stand up to his bullying."
The headline of this article has been changed to reflect that President Donald Trump's executive order moved to expedite the permit approval process rather than fast-tracking projects.
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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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'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 told Michigan 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
Marching for a World Free From Fossil Fuels
Not one new pipeline or drilling rig should needlessly threaten communities and our planet when we know that the end of the fossil fuel era is on the horizon.
Sep 16, 2023
The following is part of a series of opinion pieces Common Dreams is publishing in the lead-up to the March to End Fossil Fuels on Sunday, September 17 in New York City. Read the rest of the series and our complete coverage here.
This Sunday, I will join thousands of people in New York City for the biggest climate mobilization since before the pandemic, urging President Biden and other world leaders to act boldly to stop fossil fuel expansion and extraction.
Among those thousands demanding a just transition away from fossil fuels will be Sierra Club staff, members, and volunteers and allies from Michigan and Wisconsin, representing the years-long fight to shut down Line 5, an aging and deteriorating oil pipeline operating illegally in the Great Lakes and threatening the drinking water of 40 million people.
We will also be joined by representatives from Gulf Coast communities in Texas and Louisiana who already experience disproportionate harms from the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries and are now being put at even greater risk by the industry’s planned expansion of methane gas exports, with almost 30 new or expanded facilities proposed or under construction in the Gulf Coast region alone.
Watching these extreme weather events claim lives and destroy livelihoods is scary, and it is even scarier to think this summer could be just a preview of what’s to come if we don’t change course.
For far too long, these communities and many more have lived with the daily threat of toxic pollution, explosions, leaks, and spills from fossil fuel operations. And they’re not the only ones who suffer the consequences of the fossil fuel industry’s unchecked expansion. The unprecedented heatwaves and devastating wildfires, hurricanes, and floods that have faced communities across the country this summer have made it clearer than ever that we have no time to waste in ending our reliance on the dirty fossil fuels that are polluting our communities and driving the climate crisis.
Watching these extreme weather events claim lives and destroy livelihoods is scary, and it is even scarier to think this summer could be just a preview of what’s to come if we don’t change course. But here’s the good news: We already have the tools to avert the worst of the climate crisis and rapidly transition to a cleaner, more just, more prosperous future by going all-in on clean energy and winding down our use of dirty fuels like coal, oil, and gas.
In fact, the International Energy Agency, the world’s leading energy analysis and policy organization, is now projecting that we are “witnessing the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era” and that the world will hit peak demand for fossil fuels before 2030. According to the IEA, demand will decline earlier than many anticipated, in large part due to the rapid increase in clean energy.
That explosion in clean energy deployment has been accelerated by ambitious policy driven by the Biden administration through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investments in our climate and clean energy in U.S. history. Collectively, these unprecedented investments will put us on a path to cutting climate pollution by 40% by 2030 while creating over 9 million family-sustaining jobs over the next decade. True to his commitment to do more to advance climate justice than any president before him, President Joe Biden has also taken action to block oil and gas drilling in landscapes sacred to Indigenous communities like the Greater Chaco region and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
But at the same time, the United States remains the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world, and major new fossil fuel projects like the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Willow oil project in Alaska, and gas export terminals on the Gulf Coast are still receiving federal approvals to move forward.
Not one new pipeline or drilling rig should needlessly threaten communities and our planet when we know that the end of the fossil fuel era is on the horizon. As communities across the country are ravaged by extreme weather and countless more are threatened by the daily threat of toxic fossil fuel pollution, we simply cannot afford to compromise or sacrifice any more to the fossil fuel industry.
President Biden has the power to break free from fossil fuels, and he should use it. We are coming together to urge him to stop federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects, phase out fossil fuel extraction in our public lands and waters, and do everything in his power to block dangerous, polluting projects like Line 5, Dakota Access Pipeline, and gas export facilities in the Gulf Coast and Alaska. By doing so, he will build on the important progress his administration has already made toward cutting climate pollution and advancing environmental justice.
We all deserve a world free from fossil fuels. This is a critical moment for our planet and for President Biden to lead the world toward a clean energy future. This weekend we will be in the streets urging him to seize it.
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US Judge Orders Stretch of Enbridge Line 5 Shut Down on Tribal Land
"But for the theft of Indigenous lands," said environmental activist and attorney Steven Donziger, "this pipeline would not even exist."
Jun 19, 2023
The Canadian oil company Enbridge has been ordered to pay the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa $5 million in damages for trespassing and to gradually shut down part of its Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin after a federal judge found that the company has placed the tribe's sacred land at risk of an environmental disaster.
U.S. District Judge William Conley of the Western District of Wisconsin handed down the ruling on Friday after the Bad River Band argued in court that there are now fewer than 15 feet between parts of Line 5 and the Bad River following the partial erosion of the riverbank in recent months.
The tribe said its land is in imminent danger of a potential pipeline rupture as roughly 12 miles of Line 5 run through the Bad River Band's reservation, carrying up to 23 million gallons of oil and liquefied natural gas each day through Michigan and Wisconsin to Ontario.
Line 5 has been the site of about 30 oil spills in its 70-year history, and another of Enbridge's pipelines ruptured in 2010, spilling more than 840,000 gallons of oil into a creek and the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.
"Tribal sovereignty prevailed over corporate profits."
In addition to ordering Enbridge to pay the tribe, Conley on Friday gave the company three years to wind down its operations on the Bad River Band's land, ordering it to "cease operation of Line 5 on any parcel within the band's tribal territory on which defendants lack a valid right of way and to arrange reasonable remediation at those sites."
The judge denied, however, that the pipeline's presence has put the tribe in imminent danger. He said an oil spill "would unquestionably be a public nuisance" but claimed an immediate shutdown of a portion of the pipeline would disrupt energy security and cause fuel costs to soar for locals.
Bad River Band Chairman Mike Wiggins said the tribe does not see the ruling as "cause for unqualified celebration" but expressed appreciation for the judge "putting an end to Enbridge's flagrant trespass and disregard for our rights."
"Tribal sovereignty prevailed over corporate profits," Wiggins said, adding that the tribe expects Enbridge "to fight this order with all of their corporate might."
"We are under no illusion that Enbridge will do the right thing," he added.
Enbridge said over the weekend that it plans to appeal the ruling.
Erick Arnold, an attorney for the Bad River Band, said the three-year timeline leaves the tribe "vulnerable to catastrophe."
"While the band's motivations have never been about money," said Arnold, "such a small award for a decadelong trespass during which Enbridge earned over a billion dollars in net profits from Line 5 will not sufficiently deter trespassers like Enbridge, but will instead create an incentive for corporations to violate the sovereignty of the band."
Environmental lawyer and activist Steven Donziger called the order a "victory" overall.
"But for the theft of Indigenous lands," he said, "this pipeline would not even exist."
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Climate Orgs Launch Week of Action to End the Era of Fossil Fuels
"Young people are angry and fed up with watching President Biden cave to the fossil fuel industry time and time again," one activist said.
Jun 07, 2023
In the wake of Biden administration decisions like approving ConocoPhillips' Willow project and agreeing to fast-track the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), climate organizations and frontline communities across the country are launching a week of action from June 8 to 11 to demand President Joe Biden honor his promise to be the climate president and end the era of fossil fuels for good.
The action week will include a Thursday rally and sit-in at the White House along with demonstrations at 65 other locations across the nation backed by 64 different Indigenous, climate, labor, and environmental justice groups.
"Young people are angry and fed up with watching President Biden cave to the fossil fuel industry time and time again," Zero Hour organizing director Magnolia Mead said in a statement. "We need an immediate transition to renewable energy to slow the climate crisis, and that's impossible while our president is still approving massive fossil fuel expansion. If President Biden cares at all for future generations and frontline communities, he must choose to end the era of fossil fuels."
Our public officials clearly lack the political will or backbone to protect our people and the planet. So we must take action."
The action week—whose organizers include Zero Hour, Sunrise, 350.org, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Fridays for Future, and the People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition—grew out of disappointment with Biden's Willow approval along with the desire to channel young people's online opposition to that project into direct action.
The sense of urgency only mounted when the debt-ceiling agreement, signed into law by Biden Saturday, included approving the MVP and weakening the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which gives frontline communities a say in infrastructure projects.
The protest outside the White House, which begins at 2:00 pm ET, will specifically demand that Biden cancel the 300-mile fracked gas MVP through Virginia and West Virginia.
"We are still not deterred in our fight against the MVP and other such harmful projects," Maury Johnson, a landowner in the MVP's path and a member of Preserve Monroe and the POWHR (Protect Our Water, Heritage, & Rights) Coalition—who is helping to arrange transport for the rally—told Common Dreams. "Hope to see hundreds if not thousands join us in front of the White House on Thursday, June 8."
The new direct action group Climate Defiance has promised to risk arrest at the protest and called on everyone of conscience to join them.
"Now is the time for climate action," Jay Waxse of Climate Defiance told Common Dreams. "Joe Biden and Joe Manchin think it's time for massive fossil fuel expansion, while our forests burn and skies fill with smoke. Our public officials clearly lack the political will or backbone to protect our people and the planet. So we must take action."
Waxse added that the group had chosen nonviolent direct action "to express to our branches of government that we won't be satisfied until we put an end to the expansion of new fossil fuels. And that means stopping the MVP now!"
As Washington D.C., along with most of the eastern U.S., chokes on unhealthy air from Canadian wildfires, Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said the White House protest would go ahead, though the organizers were taking health precautions including distributing N95 masks.
"This is 'exactly' why we have to take these sorts of actions," Henn tweeted.
For those who can't travel to D.C., organizers have provided a nationwide action map for the week as well as a toolkit explaining how to register an action.
Overall, the week has four main demands for Biden:
- End new fossil fuel projects, including Willow and the Alaska LNG project.
- Phase out ongoing oil and gas drilling on public lands.
- Declare a climate emergency.
- Make renewable energy technology more available for homes and transportation.
Local actions will also target specific fossil fuel projects, such as the Canadian-owned aging Line 5 pipeline that Indigenous advocates worry will spill oil into the Great Lakes.
"As a Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe member, I am calling on the Biden administration to shut down Line 5 immediately," Bad River Ojibwe activist Aurora Conley of the Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance said in a statement.
"Our territories and water are in imminent danger, and we do not want to see irreversible damage to our land, water, and wild rice. We do not want our lifeways destroyed," Conley added.
In Seattle, meanwhile, protesters with XR Seattle, 350 Seattle, and other groups are meeting outside the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building at 12:00 pm PT Thursday with both national and local demands. In addition to calling on Biden to halt the MVP and restore NEPA, they also want Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to publicly oppose the expansion of the GTN pipeline, a plan from TC Energy to pump an additional 150 million cubic feet of methane per day through the 1,354 mile long pipeline that runs through British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The additional methane would add 3.47 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere each year.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could decide on the expansion as soon as July 27.
350 Seattle communications director Ben Jones told Common Dreams that the action was motivated by "the combination of looming expansion of natural gas" along the West Coast "and approval of a deeply unpopular and strongly resisted pipeline out East."
Jones was also concerned about the gutting of NEPA, which has helped communities in the Pacific Northwest to fight off more than 20 proposals for oil and gas expansion in the region in the last 15 years.
"With gutting NEPA, that's some of the main avenues that community groups have for public comment or for advocacy," Jones said.
Nationwide, organizers hope that the coming week of action will be the first in a summer-long escalation leading up to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres' hosting of a global Climate Ambition Summit in New York City in September.
"Starting this June and leading up to September, we will be taking action with national and international partners to make it clear that siding with Big Oil is a political liability for Biden—and we, the people who got him elected, demand better," the coalition said in their toolkit.
Correction: This piece has been updated to reflect a change in the expected FERC agenda with regards to the GTN pipeline expansion.
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Citing 'Imminent Danger,' Indigenous Women Demand Biden Shut Down Line 5 Pipeline
"Every single one of us has agency and a responsibility to take action, honor the treaties, and protect Mother Earth," asserted one Oneida Nation leader. "It is the time to be brave and courageous."
May 25, 2023
Native American women leaders and more than 150 allied advocacy groups from across the United States on Thursday implored the Biden administration to decommission a Canadian-owned oil and gas pipeline that, according to one group, has spilled more than a million gallons of fossil fuels in over 30 incidents during the past 55 years.
In a letter to President Joe Biden, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, and other administration officials, leaders of the Indigenous Women's Treaty Alliance—which is facilitated by the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)—called on the president to "immediately revoke the presidential permit for Canada's deteriorating Enbridge Line 5 pipeline before environmental calamity strikes with oil spills into the Great Lakes."
"We write to you as Indigenous grandmothers, mothers, aunties, daughters, sisters, and relatives. We are of the Great Lakes, where our sacred food manoomin (wild rice) grows on water," the letter states. "We hold a responsibility to protect our water, our ecosystems, and our cultural lifeways for the next seven generations."
Manoomin "is fundamental to the physical, spiritual, and cultural survival of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa," the letter's signers explained. "Our sovereignty and treaty-protected rights to hunt, fish, and gather food and medicine are all at risk. Diverse fish populations spawn in the Bad River Watershed. These fish are economically and culturally vital to the Bad River Band, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and the entire region."
Treaty rights and manoomin were at the center of Indigenous-led opposition to replacing Line 3, another Enbridge pipeline running from Canada through the Great Lakes region. Despite fierce resistance from Indigenous, climate, and environmental activists, the Biden administration declined to block Line 3's replacement, which went online in October 2021.
"An oil disaster would permanently devastate the exceptional ecology of the watershed, the wild rice, and fish populations," the new letter continued. "At the Bad River Reservation, recent flooding has eroded one riverbank to within 11 feet or less of Line 5's centerline, creating an immediate threat."
Last September, U.S. District Judge William Conley found that Enbridge was trespassing on lands belonging to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northwestern Wisconsin, and profiting off Line 5 at the tribe's expense. However, Conley said earlier this month that since the tribe cannot prove that an "emergency" exists along the flooded riverbank, he is unlikely to order Enbridge to shut down the pipeline.
"This is a nearly 70-year-old pipeline running almost two decades past its engineered lifespan," the new letter stresses. "Erosion from receding waters or the next rainfall could cause a 'guillotine rupture'—a vertical break causing oil to gush from both sides, poisoning the Bad River watershed and Lake Superior."
As the Oil & Water Don't Mix coalition explained:
Nearly 23 million gallons of oil daily flow through two aging pipelines in the heart of the Great Lakes, just 1.5 miles west of the Mackinac Bridge. Constructed during the Eisenhower administration in 1953, the two 20-inch-in-diameter [pipelines]... lie exposed at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac—a busy shipping channel...
Line 5 has spilled 33 times and at least 1.1 million gallons along its length since 1968.
The pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac cross one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world. The Great Lakes are home to 21% of the world's fresh surface water. The pristine straits area supports bountiful fisheries, provides drinking water to thousands of people, and anchors a thriving tourism industry with historic and beautiful Mackinac Island right in the center.
In November 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer moved to revoke Line 5's easement, with a shutdown order coming the following May. However, Enbridge ignored Whitmer's order and kept running the pipeline.
"Revoking the presidential permit and forcing Enbridge to cease Line 5's operations is consistent with your administration's directives for climate, nation-to-nation relations, and environmental justice. It is also consistent with the knowledge we share that the Great Lakes—one-fifth of the world's surface freshwater at a time of growing water scarcity—are invaluable treasures that must be protected, regardless of political pressures, special interests, and short-term profits," the new letter argues.
"Water is life," the signers added. "We are... calling on you to protect essential water, as well as wild rice, fisheries, and cultural survival."
Jannan J. Cornstalk, a citizen of Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and director of the Water is Life Festival, said in a statement Thursday that "our very lifeways and cultures hang in the balance as Line 5 continues to operate illegally in Indigenous territories and water."
"These are our lifeways—when that water is healthy enough that rice is growing—that not only benefits our communities, but that benefits everybody up and downstream," Cornstalk added. "Allowing Line 5 to continue to operate is cultural genocide, and the Biden administration must listen and shut down Line 5. That water is our relative, and we will do whatever it takes to protect our water, our sacred relative."
Aurora Conley of the Bad River Ojibwe and Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance said: "I am calling on the Biden administration to shut down Line 5 immediately. Our territories and water are in imminent danger, and we do not want to see irreversible damage to our land, water, and wild rice."
"We do not want our lifeways destroyed," Conley added. "The Ojibwe people are here in Bad River because of the wild rice. A rupture from this oil spill will irreversibly harm the Great Lakes and wild rice beds. This is unacceptable. We will not stand for this. Shut down Line 5 now."
Carrie Chesnik of the Oneida Nation Wisconsin and founder of the Treaty Land Trust, asserted that "we have an opportunity here to shut down the Line 5 pipeline, and protect what we all hold dear."
"We all have the responsibility and agency to act in a good way, to care for the land and waters," she continued. "What our communities have known for a long time is that the water is hurting, Mother Earth is hurting, and pretty soon we won't have clean water for our kids, for future generations."
"As a Haudenosunee woman, an auntie, daughter, and sister, I have an inherent responsibility to the water and our children," Chesnik added. "Every single one of us has agency and a responsibility to take action, honor the treaties, and protect Mother Earth. It is the time to be brave and courageous."
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Victory for First Nations in Northern Gateway Fight
Jul 01, 2016
In a stunning victory for First Nations and environmentalists, a Canadian court has overturned the approval of the highly controversial Northern Gateway pipeline in Canada.
The country's Federal Court of Appeal ruled yesterday in a 2-to-1 decision that the government had failed to adequately consult with First Nations over the pipeline, which will severely impact their way of life.
The proposed $7.9 billion Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, if built, would transport the dirty tar sands fuel from Alberta to an export terminal on the west coast of British Columbia. The cultural and ecological impact of the pipeline would be huge.
Oil tankers would have to navigate what are seen as treacherous waters. The pipeline itself crosses the Great Bear rainforest and would have run down the Skeena River, the major salmon river of northwest British Columbia.
The Court's decision effectively "shuts the door" on the pipeline ever being built, argue its critics. It also blocks yet another potential route for the tar sands to get to market. Indeed, the tar sands industry is rapidly running out of options to get its dirty fuel to the consumer.
In its 153-page judgment, the court argued that consultation with First Nations by the previous Stephen Harper Government was "brief, hurried and inadequate" even though it would have been easy for the two sides to have a meaningful dialogue.
The damning judgement said: "Canada failed to make reasonable efforts to inform and consult. It fell well short of the mark."
It continued: "Missing was a real and sustained effort to pursue meaningful two-way dialogue. Missing was someone from Canada's side empowered to do more than take notes, someone able to respond meaningfully at some point."
"The inadequacies -- more than just a handful and more than mere imperfections -- left entire subjects of central interest to the affected First Nations, sometimes subjects affecting their subsistence and well-being, entirely ignored," wrote the court.. "Many impacts of the project were left undisclosed, undiscussed and unconsidered."
Trudeau's cabinet will now have to decide what to do. At least they must undertake an adequate consultation exercise before a new permit can be issued. However, Canada's new Prime Minister said he was opposed to the pipeline back in April, and whether his Government sides with First Nations or the powerful tar sands lobby will be seen as a critical test of his leadership on both sides of the debate.
Meanwhile, First Nations and environmentalists reacted positively to the news:
"At every turn you're going, you are seeing nails in the coffin of the Enbridge project," said Peter Lantin, president of the council of the Haida Nation. "I don't think there's enough room for another nail in the coffin."
"Everybody is pretty happy - it's wonderful result," said Art Sterritt, an elder with the Gitga'at First Nation. "There is really no good that can come of the Northern Gateway project. ... Just one spill from this project basically wipes out our rights to harvest, our access to our food, our economy, and our culture."
Sven Biggs, a representative of one of the environmental groups in the lawsuit, said: " "Today's ruling shows what the people have been saying all along - this pipeline will never be built. This is a victory,"
Jessica Clogg, senior counsel with Vancouver-based West Coast Environmental Law, added, "This ruling provides an important opportunity for Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau to do the right thing and end the project for good by implementing a ban on oil tankers on the north coast of British Columbia."
However, Enbridge said it remains "fully committed" to building the pipeline.
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