Legal fights continue as reroute of Line 5 pipeline begins
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The disputed reroute of the Line 5 pipeline is officially underway. Energy company Enbridge started clearing trees in late February for a segment of pipeline planned to go around the Bad River Reservation, almost seven years after the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa sued to have the pipeline removed from its land. The tribe has fought against the reroute since then. And while Enbridge is currently free to proceed, new lawsuits could force work to stop.
Separately, Michigan Attorney Dana Nessel and Enbridge lawyers faced off before the U.S. Supreme Court late last month as part of another yearslong legal battle: Nessel wants the part of Line 5 that runs under the Straits of Mackinac shut down over fears a spill could cause ecological disaster in the Great Lakes. The Supreme Court is weighing in on whether the case should continue in state court or be moved to federal court, as Enbridge requested. Meanwhile, key decisions are expected soon on the controversial tunnel Enbridge wants to build beneath the lakebed to house the pipeline.
A group of private equity investors including a BlackRock subsidiary is planning to buy the utility that serves more than 520,000 people around Indianapolis. The parent company of AES Indiana, among the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, announced last Monday it agreed to be purchased and could go private as soon as this year. The $33 billion deal has some state leaders worried private ownership will worsen already rising electric rates.
A major Michigan utility isn’t budging on plans to sell its hydroelectric dams. If state regulators block Consumers Energy from selling 13 dams to a private equity firm, the utility will decommission them all instead, an executive wrote in testimony last week. The sale agreement faces a host of recommended conditions meant to protect Consumers Energy customers. But the utility said it’s not willing to negotiate the terms of the sale despite concerns from state officials and ratepayer advocates.
And who will pay to run the coal plants the Trump administration is keeping open past their retirement dates? Federal regulators will have to decide. The U.S. Department of Energy issued emergency orders in December to delay the closure of two Indiana coal plants, citing an energy reliability emergency. Now the utilities that operate the plants are asking regulators to spread the cost of keeping them open to ratepayers throughout the region, not just local customers.
More energy news, in case you missed it:
- The now-delayed push to reopen Michigan’s retired Palisades nuclear plant may be part of a new era for nuclear power as developers race to deploy new technologies.
- Google inked a deal with iron-air battery startup Form Energy for an installation in Minnesota that will be able to hold an eye-popping 30 gigawatt-hours of energy.
- Ontario announced an agreement with seven other provinces and two territories to build interprovincial transmission capacity meant to make Canada more energy independent.
- Ford Motor Co. is on track to start production this summer at a $3 billion southern Michigan battery plant that a citizen opposition group has failed to block in court.
- A Columbus, Ohio suburb is suing to stop Amazon from building a six-acre plot of natural gas-fed fuel cells on the site of an existing data center.
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