Coalition presses EPA to stand firm on civil rights protections amid new legal challenges

Mary Rock, Attorney, Midwest Office: “At DTE’s direction, EES Coke sought the removal of pollution limits that allowed the facility to burn more coke oven gas and emit sulfur dioxide pollution.”

Residents impacted by EES Coke’s illegal emissions celebrate the ruling

A judge has granted the EPA’s request to add multibillion-dollar energy company DTE Energy as a defendant in a federal lawsuit brought against the company’s subsidiary, EES Coke.

Debbie Chizewer, Managing Attorney, Midwest Office: “It’s just another attack on one of the most important civil rights, environmental justice tools under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. It’s not a coincidence that the states who signed onto this petition have problematic records of allowing industrial activity to harm low-income communities of color. And…

Debbie Chizewer, Managing Attorney, Midwest Office: “I think it is a perversion of our civil rights laws to say otherwise, to say that you can’t account for these past harms by creating policies that protect communities that are disproportionately harmed.”

Parties point to key evidence excluded in the MPSC case

A brief submitted by four Tribal Nations asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to overturn the Michigan Public Service Commission’s (MPSC’s) recent approval for Canadian oil giant Enbridge to build the Line 5 tunnel project beneath the Straits of Mackinac.

Biden administration agrees that Enbridge is trespassing on Bad River Band Reservation

Debbie Chizewer, Managing Attorney, Midwest Office: “The courts passed the mic to the U.S., and the U.S. handed the mic right back to the courts.”

Enbridge has earned over $1 billion by trespassing on the Bad River Band’s reservation.

A letter from more than 30 Tribal Nations in the Great Lakes region sent to President Joe Biden urging the United States to speak out against the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline’s trespass on the Bad River Band’s land.

Debbie Chizewer, Managing Attorney, Midwest Office: “It would really limit the ability of state governments and tribal nations and others to protect the interests that have been widely accepted for many years. If you can’t protect your land from a trespass because of the oil pipelines, what’s the point of having your own land?”

Comments submitted to the Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) by Earthjustice on behalf of Flint community organizations and individuals opposing Universal Coating’s proposal to add new tumble spray lines at its facility, which will add to the cumulative pollution affecting residents of this environmental justice community.

Earthjustice files amicus brief on behalf of two Michigan groups

Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action (MiCCA) and MI Air MI Health (MAMH) are asking the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the EPA’s decision to designate Detroit as in “attainment” of federal ozone standards.

John Petoskey, Attorney, Midwest Office: “EGLE needs to do more to ensure that not only that the community knows about pollution, but that pollution in the community is reduced.”

Christopher Clark, Senior Attorney, Midwest Office: “In the contested case, we had a tunneling expert and a pipeline safety expert raise significant safety concerns about this tunnel. The concern is that there would be a leak of product within the enclosed tunnel that would create an explosive environment underneath the Straits of Mackinac, which just…