U.S. panel seeking shutdown of part of Line 5 pipeline urged to move lawsuit to state court [Video]

Michigan attorneys pressed a federal appellate panel on Thursday to move their lawsuit seeking to shut down a portion of an aging oil pipeline running beneath the Straits of Mackinac from federal to state court, arguing that state environmental protection laws are in play.

Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bock told a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati that the challenge to Enbridge Inc.’s Line 5 pipeline deals with the public trust doctrine, a legal concept in which natural resources belong to the public. He said that concept is rooted in state law.

He said the lawsuit also invokes public nuisance concepts governed by state law as well as the Michigan Environmental Protection Act. He added the state owns the bottom of the straits.

“There’s no federal jurisdiction over this case,” Bock said.

Bock went on to assert that Enbridge Inc., the Canadian company that owns …