Governor Gretchen Whitmer has plans to meet with Enbridge Energy officials this week to try to reach an understanding on the future of Line Five. That’s the oil and gas line that runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac. Governor Whitmer’s position is Line 5 needs to be shut down and the path for moving oil and gas should not run through the Great Lakes. Attorney General Dana Nessel, who like Whitmer is a Democrat, has set an end-of-June deadline for a deal to remove the pipeline. That was in response to Enbridge’s proposal to spend 500 million dollars to build a new section of pipeline and encase it in a tunnel.
That would take five years. And the governor says that’s not good enough.
“I think that we’ve got a duty to get it out quicker than that, and I think the attorney general feels the same way, and so that’s my goal.”
A company spokesman says Enbridge stands by its proposal because Line 5 is a safe and reliable way to move gas and oil through the region.