Bernie Sanders calls for shutdown of Michigan oil pipeline
DETROIT — Bernie Sanders has become the second Democratic presidential hopeful to call for shutting down an oil pipeline that crosses a channel linking two of the Great Lakes.
The Vermont senator said in a tweet Thursday that Enbridge’s Line 5 should be decommissioned and new fossil fuel infrastructure banned.
Line 5 carries oil and natural gas liquids from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario. It runs beneath the Straits of Mackinac connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan. It traverses large sections of northern Wisconsin and Michigan.
Sanders announced his position on the ninth anniversary of a rupture of another Enbridge pipeline that spilled 1 million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River.
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee also has endorsed a Line 5 shutdown ahead of Democratic presidential debates in Detroit next week.
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