Whitmer: Enbridge dodging responsibility for potential spill

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer criticized Enbridge Inc. on Wednesday for what she described as the company's refusal to make an airtight pledge to pay for damages caused by a potential oil spill from its pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel.

The Democratic governor's administration is pressuring the Canadian pipeline company for an explicit acknowledgment of financial responsibility for any release from its Line 5 into the Straits of Mackinac. Enbridge insists it already made such an assurance under a 2018 agreement with former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to construct an underground pipeline tunnel beneath the straits.

“I’m shocked at Enbridge Inc.’s refusal so far to sign a written agreement promising to cover the costs of an oil spill in the Great Lakes if this unthinkable event were to happen,” Whitmer said in a statement.

“When I was a kid, my parents taught me: ‘You break it, you pay for it.’ It seems that’s the bare minimum Enbridge owes every Michigander so long as the company continues to pump crude oil through the Straits of Mackinac.”

Enbridge said last week in response to a letter from the state Department of Natural Resources that it "pledges to take full responsibility for the cleanup of any incident in Michigan or anywhere along our pipeline system.”

Mike Koby, president of U.S. operations for Enbridge Energy LP, repeated the promise in a letter Monday to Dan Eichenger, director of the state department.

But Eichenger responded Wednesday that the company still hadn't gone far enough.

Line 5 carries oil and liquids used in propane from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario. A nearly 4-mile-long (6.4-kilometers-long) segment, laid in 1953 beneath the Straits of Mackinac, is divided into two pipes.

The...