Court Gives Enbridge Go-Ahead on Midwest Pipeline

Private funding and private land within the US do not require federal oversight of 589-mile tar-sands oil pipeline

A federal judge ruled the Enbridge pipeline to carry tar-sands oil between Oklahoma and Illinois can proceed.

“Because a private company is constructing the 589-mile pipeline on mostly privately owned land that is entirely within the territorial borders of the United States, no federal statute authorizes the federal government to oversee or regulate the construction project,” U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in Washington said today in a written ruling.

The judge rejected arguments by the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation that the failure to conduct an environmental impact review of the pipeline violated the National Environmental Protection Act.

(more on Enbridge pipeline ruling . . . )

Latest