Bad News for Michigan and a Xmas Gift to Enbridge

 

The battle for clean air and the reduction of the pollutant, carbon dioxide, took a step backward this month when the Michigan Public Service Commission announced their decision concerning the Canadian oil company giant Enbridge and their pipeline known as Line 5. (See my previous blog “Saving the Great Lakes” Nov 2, 2023.

The nominal decision-maker in this circumstance is Michigan’s public authority, the Public Service Commission. The Commission is charged by law with making decisions in the public interest that energy companies (think Consumer’s Power, Detroit Edison, and myriad others) must abide by to do business in Michigan. (The Commissioners of the three-member Public Service Commission are named by Michigan’s Governor with new members being named on a regular basis.)

This controversary that the Public Service Commission has weighed into is Enbridge’s refusal to follow the rules concerning Michigan’s authority over leases that involve placing Michigan citizens in harm’s way or, more specifically, refusing to follow direction from Michigan’s Governor when she decided that Line 5 should be shut down given its risk to the Great Lakes and Michigan citizenry. The Governor must have thought she settled the controversary when she told Enbridge that the authority to operate Line 5 had expired 20 years earlier and she would not extend the lease. Enbridge quickly responded by refusing to recognize the Governor’s authority and replied that an obscure treaty between Canada and United States overrode the Governor’s authority. This extraordinary claim provoked legal wrangling between the two parties with suits and counter suits that seem to this author as a means of allowing the status quo to exist which Enbridge very much favors.

It was into this cauldron of competing claims that the (PSC) Public Service Commission stepped as their authority would seem to dictate. On December 10, after months of debates and public pronouncements, the PSC announced their decision. They said that Enbridge could continue to use Line 5 in its current form until a new design for the line could be completed and installed. Enbridge claims that this new pipeline design, which involves building a tunnel under the Staits of Mackinaw, would lower the risk of daily pumping several million gallons of oil and gas into the Great Lakes waterway. It is not a foregone conclusion that this would solve the dilemma – the tunnel is expected to take several years to design and build AFTER the designs are finalized and APPROVED by the US Army Corp of Engineers. It seems more like kicking the can down the road in deference to Enbridge and their powerful legal team.

I read about the PSC announcement that included a report. The Commission’s decision was by majority vote – 2 to 1 in favor of the status quo for the next five years or more until the tunnel issue is settled. The abstaining member remained silent on her rationale, but the other two members seemingly used a staff report as the rationale for their decision.

I decided to read the staff report. (It was unsigned by the way). I had some trouble reading it.

Make that a lot of trouble since the report was not written in English, nor was it intended to explain anything as nearly as I could tell. I began on page one, intending to read every word in search of something that made sense to me. After 40 pages of what appeared to be a legal brief and history of Line 5, I decided to give up on reading every word. Instead, I decided to skim the report and search for anything that sounded like an excuse for the incomprehensible decision. This change in approach didn’t help. The text was written using rare English words that were presumably useful for 3^rd year law students but just as certainly not suitable for ordinary readers despite my love for current and past American literature.

By page 50, I was turning page after page with little comprehension of anything that had to do with tunnels, pipelines, or legal authority for contrary action. Yet the report continued. I was reduced to turning pages as fast as possible until the end. I checked the last page number; 350 pages had been filled.

I suspect the PSC members did not read the report but merely weighed the completed copy and congratulated the staff writers for its voluminous nature that must have seemed appropriate as a testimony to the importance of legal briefs when common sense is denied.

Let me know what you think.