Back in September, we attempted to formulate the problems we have with Enbridge’s Line 6B project in a single, succinct sentence. We came up with this:
Enbridge has run roughshod over the citizens of the state of Michigan and our state elected officials have stood by idly and allowed it to happen.
A couple of weeks later, we revisited that statement in a post discussing the fruitlessness of our many attempts to convince state elected officials to take some notice. The only outspoken voice we have encountered has been Lance Enderle, who unfortunately failed to unseat Mike Rogers-– a man who has been no advocate for landowners and no critic of Enbridge.
Now, just to be clear: this is a nonpartisan blog. It’s not that we don’t have political convictions (trust us, we do!); it’s that in our view everyone, regardless of political affiliation should be concerned with property rights, with the behavior of multinational corporations, with the protection of Michigan’s priceless natural resources. And when it comes to those matters, we will call them like we see them.
And today, we are exceedingly pleased to heap some praise upon a couple of Michigan state legislators who spoke up just last week– are you ready for this??!!– criticizing, forcefully, the activities of Enbridge in our state. Honestly, we were bowled over! Who are these brave souls and what did they say? They are state representatives Tom Cochran of Mason and Kate Segal of Battle Creek, who issued a stinging press release calling for some much needed (we would even say belated!) Enbridge vigilance. Here’s Cochran:
“Enbridge has earned a bad reputation in our state by allowing its pipeline to spill onto Michigan’s soil and pollute our water for 18 hours before taking action to stop the massive spill,” Cochran said. “Enbridge spilled as much as a million gallons of oil, resulting in the evacuation of about 50 families and a $3.7 million fine from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Enbridge’s track record in Michigan has been literally disastrous.”
Not bad, that! What’s more, it appears that Cochran even read the NTSB report and understands that we cannot forget about what happened in Marshall! But then Kate Segal’s remarks might even be even better:
“When Enbridge completes this massive new project, they will have nearly tripled the capacity of their old pipeline without going through a comprehensive review process or completing critical environmental impact studies. They have rushed forward with this replacement line in a piecemeal fashion in order to circumvent federal reviews and standards,” Segal said. “Worse, Republicans in Lansing have passed laws that reduced state oversight of corporate cleanups and weakened polluter pay laws, and the Michigan Public Service Commission simply does not have the resources or power to sufficiently assess the project. This makes it harder to keep Michigan pure and clean. Rather than relaxing environmental regulations on corporations that pollute and fast-tracking projects for a company that has already irreparably damaged our pristine environment, we should be demanding tougher laws that hold big companies and special interests accountable.”
Segal hits a few of the most important points that we, and others, have been talking about for months: the haste with which the project has proceeded, its evasion of federal oversight, and the woeful state of regulations in Michigan. Our only real quibble here is that Segal is a bit too soft on the MPSC. We don’t doubt that it’s true that they need more resources. But they also clearly need more will; as far as we’ve seen– and we’ve been thinking about them a lot lately— there have been no indications that they’d like to take a tougher line on Enbridge. Quite the contrary.
Nevertheless, we applaud Kate Segal and Tom Cochran most enthusiastically. You can bet that we’ll be reaching out to them and encouraging them to take further action. We encourage you to contact them as well. The more public interest wind we can put in their sails, the more likely they’ll be to take meaningful steps to protect landowners and our natural resources.