Yesterday, Bill C-69 “An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts” passed third reading in the Senate with over 180 amendments. Unfortunately, it looks like many of the amendments drafted by Big Oil and proposed by Conservative Senators were adopted, but it’s not over yet. The Bill has now been sent back to the House of Commons which will vote on which amendments are accepted before it goes back to the Senate for a final vote.

Enbridge Inc. is launching legal action against Michigan over the state’s insistence that the company shut its Line 5 crude oil pipeline down within two years even though a proposed replacement will not be ready for at least another five years, the Globe and Mail reports.

Enbridge, the same company responsible for a pipeline rupture in 2010 that spilled diluted bitumen into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, is insisting that it be allowed to build a tunnel for a replacement section of the Line 5 pipeline underwater across the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Enbridge is arguing that shutting off Line 5 before the replacement pipeline is in place will jeopardize Michigan’s energy supply. It will also put a squeeze on crude being transported from the Alberta tar sands.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said the company has made its intentions clear. “It is now abundantly clear that Enbridge … is only interested in protecting its bottom line,” she said.