2022.3.3
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The Line 5 pumping station near Mackinaw City. Photo © Lester Graham / Michigan Radio

Gas and oil industry report projects fuel price hikes if Enbridge Line 5 is shut down

A report for a gas and oil industry group predicts gasoline and diesel prices will jump and stay high in this region if Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 is shut down by politicians or the courts. Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered the pipeline to shut down, but the Canadian company did not comply and went to court.

The experts who wrote the report said they were asked to look at whether fuel prices would be affected if Line 5 suddenly stopped operating.

Terry Clower is a professor of public policy at George Mason University. He and his partner, an economist, said there’s never been a case where a pipeline was shut down by a state government, so they based their predictions on what happened when Hurricane Katrina forced refineries to close.

If Line 5 shuts down, “we project that the restriction in fuel in fuel supplies will cause an increase of between 9.47 percent and 11.66 percent,” he said. “In the states of Ohio and [southeast] Michigan that is on top of any other market-based increase.”

This article was originally published by Michigan Radio as part of the Great Lakes News Collaborative. The collaborative’s four nonprofit newsrooms — Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at DPTV and Michigan Radio — aim to elevate discussion, amplify the voice of Michigan residents and produce action that protects the region’s waters for future generations.

What’s Up With Water — March 8, 2022

For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, i Heart Radio, and SoundCloud.

Featured coverage from this week's episode of What's Up With Water looks at:

In Ukraine, the Russian invasion has endangered basic services like water and healthcare. More than a million Ukrainians have fled the country since the Russian onslaught began on February 24. Those who remain are witnessing the hardships of life in a war zone.

In Australia, communities along the country’s east coast continue to be battered with heavy rain. In the past week, a series of storms flooded roads, buildings, and vehicles.

This week, Circle of Blue highlights a recent report from the United Nations climate panel.

From the Archives:

The sun sets over Lake Superior as Bay Mills fishermen work to catch their day’s worth of whitefish. Photo © Whitney Gravelle

Treaty Rights Acknowledged For First Time in Oil Pipeline’s Controversial History

Governor Gretchen Whitmer's decision to revoke the easement that allows Line 5 to operate was historic on several fronts.

Cited in the revocation, for the first time in the history of Line 5, Michigan’s administration officially acknowledged nearly 200-year-old Indigenous Chippewa and Ottawa treaty rights as one of the reasons to shut down the pipeline project and protect Great Lakes ecology and fisheries.

The 1836 Treaty of Washington’s boundaries cover the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula and a western chunk of northern Michigan, running along Lake Michigan to Thunder Bay River. The area encompasses not only the Bay Mills Indian Community, but the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The five tribes form CORA, the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, an inter-tribal management body for 1836 treaty rights.

The treaty’s thirteenth and final article reserves the right for the Indigenous Anishinaabe people of Michigan (meaning the Ottawa and Chippewa peoples) to hunt and fish on any ceded land and water. It’s a right that Line 5 jeopardizes.