Up North Progressive

Governor Gretchen Whitmer began her new job in Lansing today requesting Attorney General Dana Nessel to write her first opinion on PA 359 to determine if the lame duck-session law is legal. PA 359 started out as MI SB 1197 sponsored by Tom Casperson (R-Hates Clean Water) to add language to the PA 214 of 1952. The Mackinac Bridge is now the Mackinac Bridge and Utility Tunnel. The tunnel theoretically will be built to house Enbridge Line 5, the 70-year-old oil pipeline sitting at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac only one accident away from rupturing and turning two Great Lakes into an ecological disaster.

Rick Snyder was so determined to make sure Enbridge could continue pumping oil through the pipeline when Gretchen Whitmer won the election he and the Republican-controlled legislature fast-tracked a bill that would allow Enbridge to continue pumping oil through Line 5 for 10 years under the pretense of digging a tunnel under the straits. The bill was passed so quickly no one even knows if it’s possible to dig a tunnel in the Straits and the Mackinac Bridge Authority was put in charge of overseeing the project. The Mackinac Bridge Authority didn’t know this until SB 1197 became public. Dana Nessel had this to say about the request:

There are serious and significant concerns regarding PA 359, which the previous governor and legislature initiated and passed without the care and caution one would expect for an issue that will have a monumental impact on our state. Governor Whitmer has rightly – and immediately – raised important questions about the legality and statutory underpinnings of this Act and my office is prepared to tackle her request for an opinion immediately. I encourage any interested or concerned party to forward a brief or legal memo on the issues raised by the opinion request.

The people of Michigan overwhelmingly support shutting down Enbridge Line 5 after the ecological disaster that happened in the Kalamazoo River when Enbridge Line 6B ruptured and leaked nearly a million gallons of heavy Canadian tar sands crude oil in 2010. The clean up has taken years and involved 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River. If Line 5 ruptures in the Straits it would be an environmental catastrophe impacting the largest source of freshwater in the world. Both Governor Whitmer and Attorney General Nessel campaigned on listening to the people and working to shut down Line 5.

Attorney General Nessel assured Governor Whitmer that this opinion will be given top priority as the legality of PA 359 is in question.