CLICK BELOW TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH STATE SEN. ED MCBROOM
Upper Peninsula State Senator on Friday reacted angrily to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to shut down the Line Five Pipeline in the Staits of Mackinac.
The Dickinson County Republican says that there was no advance notice to Upper Peninsula lawmakers that the move was coming on Friday. The decision to revoke the 1953 agreement between the State of Michigan and the Enbridge Oil Company came just a week-and-a-half after elections were held across the state and across the country.
McBroom says the shutdown of Line Five would be devastating to the Upper Peninsula.
“Imagine what we went through in 2014 for winter and for propane prices,” McBroom said. “Seeing them skyrocket up. Seeing us have to have truckers driving to Arkansas to get our energy. Imagine all of that coming back, all over again.”
McBroom says that he and other U.P. lawmakers were blindsided by Whitmer’s announcement.
“It’s hard to express my frustration and disgust with the governor on this issue,” McBroom told RRN News Friday afternoon. “No early warning signs. No calls to use up here in the U.P. It’s the same crappy mentality we’re getting from (Attorney General) Dana Nessel: ‘Don’t worry Yoopers, it’ll just be the cost of a couple of pasties every month (in increased utility costs). It’s so ridiculous.”
McBroom was just getting started.
“I just got off a phone call with her administration, selling this to the other state legislators in the state, before she even does a personal phone call with us, where I’ve got to listen to a bunch of downstate reps say ‘oh, well, you know, you’ve just got to make sure you help those poor people in the U.P. because their energy is already too expensive.’ But they don’t have a blink of an eye to shut off our propane.”
The governor says the risk of an oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac is too great and it is an “unreasonable risk” to the Great Lakes. McBroom says that the governor should be supporting the building of the tunnel in the Straits to house the pipeline and to prevent any spills.
But he says Whitmer has been “slow walking” the Enbridge tunnel idea, and then “complains that it’s taking too long, when it’s her and Nessel that’s doing it to us.”
McBroom says the governor is acting now because two Michigan Supreme Court candidates she backed were elected last week, giving the Court a 4-3 Liberal majority. He predicted that Enbridge will fight the shutdown in court, and that this issue will eventually go to the United States Supreme Court, which will be a “huge waste a lot of time and taxpayer money”.
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