*

Enbridge ( ENB ) wants case heard in federal, not state, court

*

Michigan aims to stop Straits of Mackinac pipeline's use

By Nate Raymond

June 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on

Monday to hear Enbridge's ( ENB ) bid to change the venue of

Michigan's lawsuit seeking to force the Canadian pipeline

operator to stop operating a pipeline underneath the Straits of

Mackinac, waterways linking two of the Great Lakes, over

environmental concerns.

The justices took up Enbridge's ( ENB ) appeal of a lower court's ruling

rejecting the company's request to move the case from state

court into federal court, a venue generally considered more

friendly to defendants in such cases.

The Supreme Court is due to hear the case in its next term,

which starts in October.

Calgary-based Enbridge ( ENB ) has been locked in a long-running

dispute with Michigan over the aging Line 5 pipeline, which

ships 540,000 barrels per day of crude and refined products from

Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario.

A four-mile (6.4-km) section of the aging pipeline runs

underwater through the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Lake

Michigan and Lake Huron, and environmentalists are concerned

about the risk of an oil leak.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last

year ruled that Enbridge ( ENB ) waited too long to seek to have the

lawsuit that was brought by Democratic Attorney General Dana

Nessel in June 2019 removed to federal court when it tried to do

so in November 2021. The lawsuit sought to enjoin Enbridge's ( ENB )

continued operation of Line 5 based on alleged violations of

state public nuisance and environmental laws.

Nessel's office in court papers described the 6th Circuit's

ruling as the correct result in a case in which Enbridge ( ENB ) missed

by more than two years the statutory deadline to try to transfer

the litigation to federal court.

Enbridge's ( ENB ) lawyers in a petition to the Supreme Court said

that the 6th Circuit's ruling added to a split within the

regional U.S. appeals courts over whether the judiciary can

create exceptions for a 30-day time limit to seek to remove

cases filed in state court to federal court.

That split has created untenable uncertainty in the law that

resulted in defendants in some parts of the country being

subject to the strict deadline while others were not, Enbridge ( ENB )

told the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last month said it expects to

make a decision this fall on whether to grant a permit to

Enbridge's ( ENB ) proposal to build a tunnel to house the Line 5

pipeline. In April, Enbridge's ( ENB ) Line 5 project received emergency

designation after President Donald Trump declared a national

energy emergency in a January executive order, giving the Army

Corps the ability to fast-track its review of the project.

Nessel filed the lawsuit in state court in Ingham County.

While that case was being actively litigated before a state

court judge, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in

November 2022 revoked an easement that allowed the pipeline to

be operated and filed a lawsuit to enforce the revocation.

Enbridge ( ENB ) succeeded in getting that case transferred from

state court to federal court, having argued that Whitmer's

state-law claims raised federal questions related to foreign

affairs and were potentially preempted by the federal Pipeline

Safety Act and the Submerged Lands Act.

A federal judge rejected Whitmer's bid to remand the case to

state court in November 2021. Based partly on that order,

Enbridge ( ENB ) a month later moved to have Nessel's earlier lawsuit

also transferred to federal court.

Enbridge ( ENB ) argued it could transfer the case 887 days after

receiving Nessel's lawsuit based on a provision of the statute

governing case removals that allows a case to be removed 30 days

after an order from which it could be first determined a case

could be heard in federal court.