Good news on pipeline front; MN-WI crude line shelved

Strong opposition in Minnesota and falling oil prices have led bad actor Enbridge to scrap a line known as Sandpiper that would have carried volatile crude from the North Dakota Bakken oil field across Minnesota and also to Superior.

But Wisconsin isn't free of pipeline expansion risk, as Enbridge has won the predictably easy approval from Scott Walker's "chamber oc commerce mentality"-led DNR to build a new pipeline - - known as Pipeline 61 - - from Superior in the north to Delavan in the south to carry thick, Canadian tar sand crude.

Republicans and lobbyist insiders also added an 11th-hour amendment to the most-recent state budget that blocked counties like Dane along the North-South Enbridge pipeline route from establishing their own insurance requirements for pipeline construction.

That Republican version of local control these days in Wisconsin merges nicely with Walker's pollution-enabling chamber of commerce leadership at the DNR and the GOP's pro-pollution/drain-the-groundwater/mine-and-fill the wetlands caucus.