LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Attorney General Dana Nessel is not backing down from her three-year crusade to shut down Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the sixth Circuit has granted Nessel’s request review a state court’s decision in her lawsuit to shut down Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac.

The Sixth Circuit will hear arguments on whether the case should be in state or federal court.

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Less than two years after taking office, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer acted to revoke the 1953 easement allowing Line 5 to operate in the Straits of Mackinac. She cited environmental dangers to the Great Lakes but failed to provide reasonable alternatives to getting fuel to the Upper Peninsula. Canadian-based Enbridge pushed back, saying the state did not have the authority to end its pipeline operations.

Enbridge officials said Line 5 transports as much as 540,000 barrels per day of light crude oil and natural gas liquids. It runs from Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario.

Nessel originally sued Enbridge in state court in 2019, seeking to void the 1953 easement and end its operations in the straits. Enbridge and the Whitmer administration have been bouncing the case around between state and federal court for several years.

Enbridge is spending $500 million of its own money to build a tunnel to encase Line 5. The company told Michigan News Source on Monday that it is moving ahead with the Great Lakes Tunnel project.

“This decision merely allows the Attorney General to pursue an appeal of [the judge’s] decision from August 2022 that this case properly belongs in federal court,” Enbridge said. “The Attorney General seeks to undermine these considerations and promote gamesmanship and forum shopping, while ignoring the substantial federal issues that are properly decided in federal court and not state court.”