Biden DOJ sides with Native American tribe in court filing ripping Canadian pipeline as trespassing
Fox News
The Justice Department sided with Wisconsin's Bad River Band, arguing that the Enbridge Energy Company is "liable for trespass'" over its Line 5 pipeline.
Roughly 12 miles of Line 5 cross into the Reservation of the Bad River Band in northern Wisconsin, and the pipeline was constructed along "rights-of-way" obtained by the Department of Interior in the 1950s and renewed multiple times over the following decades. Enbridge’s rights-of-way for 12 parcels of land that are at the center of the lawsuit expired in 2013, and the tribe did not consent to their renewal. After the tribe sued in 2019, the Department of Interior denied the energy company’s request for renewal in 2020. Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on Twitter: @danimwallace.
"Since Enbridge has not obtained renewed rights-of-way, it lacks any legal right to remain on those lands and thus is in trespass," the brief says. A lower court, the Western District of Wisconsin, "correctly rejected Enbridge’s arguments that the Administrative Procedure Act or the 1992 agreement authorizes it to remain on these lands," Biden administration lawyers wrote.