Democrats can be Trumpists too?

[The Brain]

Just run the EUIV simulator package and publish the results.

[Barrister]

Okay, so a buddy of mine if a chemist with Enbridge whose duties primarily revolve around line 5 (he has to do with the proper coatings etc of the materials going through the pipeline to ensure the chemistry/stability of the pipeline).  Because he's not a bore I've gotten some details from him but despite the fact his entire career hangs in the balance with this dispute he'll mostly talk about normal things.

Part of the problem is that although the pipeline passes through Michigan, Michigan doesn't necessarily get a lot of benefit from it.  I mean the Upper Peninsula gets it's supply of heating propane from it, but the large majority passes through Michigan back into Canada in Ontario.  Ontario in turn relies on a huge amount of it's petroleum supplies from Line 5.  A sudden shutoff would cause massive problems for Ontario (and for my friend).  But there would be few repercussions to Michigan itself.

The pipeline is not foolproof.  It does pass through an environmentally sensitive area.  But it has existed safely for 50+ years.  Enbridge is willing to bury the pipeline underground but it won't be done on Whitmer's timeline.  But Whitmer doesn't care.



Speaking as an Albertan, it just seems that all of the environmental concerns are a smokescreen.  When you dig into the arguments they all eventually come down to climate change - that pipelines need to be shut down in order to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.  I'm not a climate denier - we do need to reduce our use of fossils fuels.  But this has always been a demand problem, not a supply problem.  You shut down all the pipelines from Alberta it won't do a thing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - the US and eastern Canada will just need to import more saudi oil.

[Razgovory]

My wife had an ancestor who was in the Georgia Militia during the War of 1812 and they kept invading what is today Alabama, getting whipped by the Creek Confederacy, and retreating back to Georgia. This happened a few times (three?) until Andrew Jackson showed up to ruin the Creek Confederacy's day. So yeah it does seem you needed at least a little military skill to successfully win.

Yes, and that is a pattern we can generalize. Settlers encroach, their cattle devastate Indigenous fields, hunters pillage hunting territories, violence ensues. Sure, settlers sometimes organized in de facto armed bands, but these armed bands usually had their successes against already weakened Indigenous polities in spaces of earlier contact. In most cases, the escalation promptly required the involvement of organized military, either to prevent all-out war, or to centrally manage all-out war.

The narrative of "settlers would have taken lands" as some sort of nameless horde of locust has long been a useful narrative that simultaneously portrayed the decline of Indigenous polities as some inevitability of history, and sufficiently diffused responsibility for how said history unfolded. It's also part of a long trend in American history to minimize the role of government (Otto gestured towards that in another thread).

Are there many cases of indigenous people exterminating settlers or driving them into the sea.

[viper37]

I don't know how controversial this pipeline or whatever is going on is though. Is this one of those pipelines that enrages native Americans or something?

No, it's one of those pipelines that enrage the hard left and the greens because there is oil&gaz involved.

[Valmy]

Which is fine, but as BB notes shutting down pipelines is not going to help with reducing oil and gas usage. You need to work on the demand side.

[viper37]

Imo, there's a reckoning happening in the RoC right now. They are slowly but surely learning that the Americans do not consider them, well at all.

so, basically, you're saying that Americans consider Canadians the same way the Canadians consider Americans? What a shocker.
I suppose Canadians do tend to believe their own propaganda too, like other nations.

[viper37]

Michigan's declaratory judgment complaint filed in Nov 2020 - seems like this dispute has been going on for a bit now: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/ag/CC_-_Summons_And_Complaint__COMPLAINT_FILED-WITH_FEE_-_20-000646-CE-C30_-___707721_7.pdf

BB talked about it in the Canadian politics thread last fall.  Nothing much has changed, except the level of outrage in Canada.  Lots of Canada's gaz supplies come from this pipeline.
I guess Canadians do love fossil fuels, as long as the pipelines are elsewhere

[Eddie Teach]

History suggests they had the army's help. I will bow to your greater expertise in alt history though.   

I expect Oex is drawing on examples where European settlers did not have the army's help, and did not succeed, and applying it to the hypothetical you proposed.

And he's assuming they just give up. This is also unlikely. Besides, there were still the governments of Mexico and Britain involved in the general area, settlements could petition them if the US had given up the annexation business.

[viper37]

Seems to me this dispute would play out exactly the same way it is playing out now. The issue here isn't some kind of anti-Canada xenophobia, it's just the kind of regulatory-commercial conflict that plays out all the time in this country.

the way I understand it, this pipeline is critical for a part of Canada, and the governor acted arbitrarily.  Even if you say "oh this has been going for a while", that "a while" is 6-8 months.  That's not nearly enough time to build another pipeline or find another way to bring the oil.

But I guess Quebec and Ontario should not complain, no one here wanted another pipeline from the West to the East coast on Canadian soil.

It's easy to posture about the environment when it's not her state that depends on this existing pipeline.  And refusing to build a new pipeline is entirely different than ordering a quick shutdown of an existing one with no alternatives in place.
If the situation was reversed and Ontario ordered the closure of a pipeline bringing oil to the US, critical to Michigan State, gov Withmer and American medias would be screaming about how unfair the Canadian governments are.

[viper37]

The State of Michigan has jurisdiction over the pipeline, concurrently with the federal government.  I assume the same would be true for a Canadian Province through which the pipeline travels.

No, it's a Federal issue.  The province could say no, but ultimately, if the Feds decide it's being done, it will be done and no amount of lawyering would change that.

[viper37]

Unlikely. European settlers would still have taken the land without the US army's help.

settlers by themselves weren't numerous and armed well enough to confront the indian tribes by themselves, hence the need for US army intervention, with reinforcements from the East in the first place.  There's a dude named Custer who learnt the hard way that the Natives weren't always as defenseless as they appeared.

[The Minsky Moment]

Seems to me this dispute would play out exactly the same way it is playing out now. The issue here isn't some kind of anti-Canada xenophobia, it's just the kind of regulatory-commercial conflict that plays out all the time in this country.

the way I understand it, this pipeline is critical for a part of Canada, and the governor acted arbitrarily.  Even if you say "oh this has been going for a while", that "a while" is 6-8 months.  That's not nearly enough time to build another pipeline or find another way to bring the oil.

My point is that it is more than enough time to get an injunction from a court to preserve the status quo.  It doesn't seem the company tried to do this.  Instead it seems the company's strategy seems to be to simply ignore Whitmer's order while pursuing mediation.  That raised my eyebrows a bit but I'm sure the company is well represented and getting good advice.  In any event, while the company may be exposed to some kind of sanction, there doesn't appear to be any disruption that would impact Canadian national interests, at least at this point.

If the situation was reversed and Ontario ordered the closure of a pipeline bringing oil to the US, critical to Michigan State, gov Withmer and American medias would be screaming about how unfair the Canadian governments are.

They probably would, but so what?

[Admiral Yi]

Anyone who doesn't like what the governor is doing could always just kidnap her.

[crazy canuck]

The treaty states the pipelines are subject to reasonable regulation by governmental authorities having jurisdiction. There is also a provision for a temporary suspension of all operations in the event of "demonstrable need temporarily to reduce or stop for safety or technical reasons the normal operation of a Transit Pipeline"  None of those key terms - "temporary" or "demonstrable need"  - are defined, creating some ambiguity.

This looks like a garden variety legal dispute over interpretation of a statute. The Canadian company has the right to go to federal court to get injunctive relief - including emergency injunctive relief if needed.  Looks like they would have a decent case.

The Canadian brief now filed in court rather sees it the way I proposed.

"Further, such unilateral action by a single state would impair important U.S. and Canadian foreign policy interests by raising doubts about the capacity of the government of the United States to make and uphold commitments without being undermined by an individual state,"

"Canada's ability to rely on bilateral treaties are at the heart of the U.S.-Canada relationship."

If you are seriously suggesting that it is part of the regulatory function to shut the thing down - then what the point is it to have a treaty with your country to safeguard the pipeline.

[crazy canuck]

Lets imagine that Embridge is not from Canada but from Oklahoma and instead of an international treaty governing the case, there is just a regular federal statute governing interstate commerce.

Seems to me this dispute would play out exactly the same way it is playing out now. The issue here isn't some kind of anti-Canada xenophobia, it's just the kind of regulatory-commercial conflict that plays out all the time in this country.

The fact that a treaty is in play doesn't change the analysis - a ratified treaty becomes a part of federal law, it doesn't become some kind of magical legal trump card that overrides the entire legal system.

So ignore that this is a international agreement and boundary.  Isn't that the core of the problem counselor?