RE:RE:Ottawa files court brief supporting EnbridgeCommentary to go with this from Stockwatch Energy Today via looneytunes on the AAV board.
The Canadian government has re-entered the legal fray over Enbridge Inc.'s (ENB: $54.72) Line 5, once again asking a U.S. court to stop the governor of Michigan from shutting the pipeline down. The latest court filings include an amicus brief from Ottawa that argues against shutting down the line while talks are in progress between Canada and the United States.
This is not the first time Ottawa has sided with Enbridge over Line 5. In May of last year, the government filed an amicus brief reminding all parties of a 1977 treaty that (in its view) guarantees the unimpeded flow of oil and gas across the Canadian-U.S. border. It invoked the dispute resolution process under this treaty in October. This is why cross-border negotiations are now in progress, and is part of why Ottawa has now filed its latest amicus brief -- that, and the matter is now in a different court. It was previously in a U.S. federal court. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer wanted it to be in a state court, and when a judge disagreed with her in December, her side simply dropped the federal suit and pivoted to a carbon-copy version at the state level. The legal jockeying necessitated new filings, even if many of the arguments are virtually identical.
Enbridge is trying to get the case moved back up to federal court. Its argument from the beginning, ever since Ms. Whitmer ordered a shutdown of the pipeline in 2020, has been that pipelines are a federal matter. It has continued to operate Line 5 despite Ms. Whitmer's order. She in turn has threatened to seize any profits that the company makes from running the line. The position of the Canadian government, as laid out in the new amicus brief, is that the court should take no action while treaty talks remain in progress.
Quintessential1 wrote: The higher the prices of oil, natural gas and propane go and the colder it gets, the less likely this line will be shutdown.
Also, the longer this plays out, the more Enbridge mittigates the downside of a shutdown through alternate routes, line reversals and other sources of revenue. Eventually a potential shutdown of this line will not be considered detrimental to Enbridge's revenue stream.
Go Enbridge! ;-)
alhiemstra wrote: https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/ottawa-files-court-brief-supporting-enbridge-inc-in-line-5-dispute-with-michigan-1.5768316