Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
State environmental regulators are reviewing permits they recently granted for the Line 5 tunnel project, in light of a recent Michigan Supreme Court decision that raised the bar for environmental reviews.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Phil Roos, director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, announced the development Wednesday in a press release.
Calling the Line 5 pipeline “a ticking time bomb in the heart of the Great Lakes,” Whitmer also wrote a letter Wednesday urging outgoing Enbridge CEO Gregory Ebel to shut it down “within months.”
“The Michigan Supreme Court has made clear that the state must more thoroughly scrutinize the environmental consequences of the proposed tunnel and the alternatives to it,” Whitmer said in a statement. “At the same time, Enbridge needs to stop asking Michigan to wait for a tunnel that could be a decade or longer away and start pursuing alternatives now that can get oil out of the Straits within months.”
