What began as a straightforward question from one water-quality advocate has morphed into a high-stakes battle over an oil pipeline at the highest levels of the U.S. government – with implications that go far beyond the fate of a technical legal conflict.
The question arose after a 2010 Enbridge Energy oil spill in Michigan. The advocate asked what other Michigan waterways were at risk from crude oil spills. But in the wake of, among other issues, two ships doing damage to an underwater section of another Enbridge oil pipeline, the conflict has now come all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
