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If Gretchen Whitmer has her way, energy prices will soar in the near future in the Midwest as she moves to block an oil pipeline that has been supplying energy to the state for decades.
Whitmer has been locked in a legal battle with Enbridge, a Canadian energy company that operates Line 5 through the Straits of Mackinac and across the state. The governor wants the pipeline to stop operating, going so far as to threaten to seize the company’s profits if it defies her order to cease operations. Whitmer and Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel have been fighting with the Canadian government in court, which has been arguing a treaty with the U.S. government allows it to operate.
Think about that: Canadian Prime Minister and Chief Climate Change Warrior Justin Trudeau is fighting to keep the pipeline open. Whitmer is to the left of Trudeau here and is on the fringe of the fringe, siding with the leftist elements that would prefer to have Upper Peninsula residents in the cold and motorists paying double -- or more -- at the pump, purely for ideological reasons.
A representative of one of the refineries that obtains crude oil from the pipeline recently quantified the gravity of the impact if Whitmer is successful. The Toledo-area refineries supply:
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100 percent of Detroit Metro airport jet fuel
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42 percent of southeastern Michigan’s gasoline,
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14 percent of southeastern Michigan’s diesel,
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30 percent of Ohio’s gasoline, and
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35 percent of Ohio’s diesel.
If Biden helps Whitmer successfully kill Line 5, the economic consequences cannot be understated. Whitmer’s attitude has been to terminate the pipeline and figure out the alternatives and consequences later.
One alternative some have suggested is to truck the crude around the region. The refinery rep estimated it would require 2,000 trucks a day to make up for the pipeline loss. How does that help Michigan roads, which have actually gotten worse during Whitmer’s tenure, despite her key campaign promise to “fix the damn roads”? Not to mention, the Democrats’ trucking fantasy is further undermined by the fact that there is a shortage of truckers. The number decreased by over 5,000 in the state during the governor’s heavy-handed coronavirus lockdowns last year.
Rising energy prices are entirely Joe Biden’s doing and Gretchen Whitmer is acting to compound those problems that would hurt Michigan drivers, truckers, and businesses the most.
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