Union to make last-minute plea as Michigan shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5 looms

A signpost marks the presence of Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline, which Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered shut down in May 2021, in Sarnia, Ont., on March 20, 2021.

Organized labour will make a last-minute plea to lawmakers in Michigan’s capital on Tuesday to oppose the ordered shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5, a crucial cross-border petroleum pipeline for Central Canada.

Globe Climate: High stakes in the Line 5 energy dispute.

Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer has set May 12 as the day by which Line 5 must cease operations after giving notice last year she would revoke a 67-year-old easement permit that allowed the pipeline to cross the Straits of Mackinac, a major waterway.

Members of the United Steelworkers union will testify before Michigan House and Senate committees Tuesday and rally outside.

A study funded by the business-backed Consumer Energy Alliance predicted more than 33,000 job losses in the United States alone.

Whitmer cited the risk of an oil spill from the portion of Line 5 that crosses the Straits of Mackinac in northern Michigan.

But, in 2010 a different pipeline operated by Enbridge, Line 6B, ruptured and released petroleum into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River, becoming one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S.

Michigan and Enbridge have been engaged in court-ordered mediation since April.

Ottawa said it’s willing to invoke the 1977 transit pipelines treaty with the United States, which guarantees the uninterrupted flow of energy between the two countries.

Separately, a cyberattack that shut down Colonial Pipeline, one of the United States’ major fuel supply networks, on Friday has stoked fears over the security of energy supply.

The Colonial Pipeline delivers nearly half of the diesel and gasoline consumed on the U.S.

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