Lynsey Mukomel
LANSING – 28 entities – including 16 states and the District of Columbia, four Native American Tribes, six environmental organizations and the Great Lakes Business Network – have submitted friend of the court briefs in support of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s motion to remand in State of Michigan, et al v Enbridge Energy, et al. The briefs support the State’s right to enforce its own laws in its own courts.
“We are grateful to the long list of Attorneys General, Governors, tribes, and organizations for their support in our fight to have this case tried where it belongs–in state court,” said Attorney General Nessel. “Gov. Whitmer and Director Eichinger took the necessary steps in November to address the grave threat posed by Enbridge’s unlawful operation of its pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac and we simply cannot continue to put our public waterways at risk.”
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17 state leaders join Michigan s plea for state sovereignty in Line 5 battle
Democratic leaders in 16 states and the District of Columbia have taken Michigan s side in its fight to have a state court, not a federal judge, decide whether the state has the authority to shutter Enbridge s Line 5 oil pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac.
The states submitted an amicus brief earlier this month, arguing that federal courts don t have the jurisdiction to rule on disputes over state property rights even if the pipeline alleged to be in violation of those property rights is federally regulated.
Attorney General Dana Nessel asked Ingham County Circuit Court last year to uphold Gov. Gretchen Whitmer s revocation of Enbridge s easement in the Straits of Mackinac as well as her order to shutter the pipeline by May 12.
Credit Kelly House / Bridge Michigan
Dana Serafin still hauls in 20,000-pound boatloads of whitefish to supply regional restaurants and markets, but in recent years, the Saginaw Bay fisherman has found it more difficult to fill his orders.
Native whitefish, the main livelihood for Serafin and other Great Lakes commercial fishers, have been in decline for years amid changes to the food web, replaced in Serafin’s nets by healthier populations of walleye and lake trout that he’s not allowed to keep.
Mark Lentz tosses back a walleye that turned up in a Serafin Fishery net earlier this week in Saginaw Bay. As whitefish numbers decline in the Great Lakes, Lentz and other commercial fishers argue they should be able to keep the walleye that swim into their nets.
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