Up North Progressive

Today in Lansing Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel gave her official legal opinion on the constitutionality of PA 359, the law that creates a Straits Corridor Authority with the job of servicing Enbridge’s desire to continue pumping oil through an aging pipeline for the next 100 years. The purpose of the act was to create a ruse for Enbridge to gain access to public land for their exclusive corporate use of building an underground tunnel for the oil pipeline that threatens the health of the Straits of Mackinac and the Great Lakes.

Attorney General Nessel’s opinion argued that the title of the law doesn’t match what’s actually in the text of the law, and that makes it unconstitutional.

No law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title.  No bill shall be altered or amended on its passage through either house so as to change its original purpose as determined by its total content and not alone by its title

Other problems with how the law came to be during the lame duck session of 2018 included the outrageously short public comment period. Some parts of the bill only allowed one day of public comment, because they weren’t included until shortly before the bill became law.

Now that the Attorney General has completed the first of five opinions requested by Governor Whitmer it’s time to begin the process of doing what the majority of Michiganders want from the new administration: Close down Enbridge Line 5 and protect the Great Lakes from a potentially catastrophic disaster.