South Portland officials are claiming victory in a six-year legal battle over the city’s Clear Skies ordinance, which forbids the loading of crude oil onto oceangoing tanker ships at South Portland docks.
Portland Pipe Line Corp., which operates a 3.5 million-barrel oil tank farm in South Portland and is headquartered there, on Thursday dropped an appeal in the company’s lawsuit to overturn the law. The voluntary dismissal effectively upholds the ordinance, which the city passed in 2014.
Portland Pipe Line sued the next year, claiming among other things that the law was inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause. After a four-day trial in 2018, the federal district court for Maine ruled in South Portland’s favor on that claim. The company appealed to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeal ultimately involved a ruling by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and recent friend-of-the-court briefs from several federal agencies. Others of the nine counts in the suit were previously dismissed.
South Portland Mayor Misha Pride commented in a news release Thursday on the company’s decision to end the appeal, saying, “This is a very good outcome for our community. The ordinance enacted by a prior City Council will stand, and I hope we can also rebuild our relationship with PPLC. It is in both of our interests to work together on future plans for their various properties in South Portland.”
South Portland approved the oil-loading ban after PPLC began contemplating a plan to reverse flow in its 236-mile pipeline between Maine and Montreal. The plan would have allowed the company to pump oil from Canada to South Portland, where the crude could be shipped worldwide.
Environmental and climate-change activists had sharply criticized that scheme, claiming it would likely involve the transportation of “tar sands” oil, which is especially destructive, they said.
The company did not immediately respond to inquiries from Mainebiz, but reportedly chose to end the appeal because it currently has no plans to reverse oil flow.
Since 1941, Portland Pipe Line has pumped 5 billion barrels of crude oil, delivered by sea, in the other direction — from South Portland to Montreal — for refining and distribution in Canada. But in recent years much of the line’s capacity has been idled.
The line is actually two lines of piping, one with an 18-inch diameter and the other 24 inches wide. The pipeline runs from PPLC’s 23-tank farm in South Portland to a similar facility in Montreal.
Portland Pipe Line is a wholly owned subsidiary of Montreal Pipe Line Ltd., a privately held Canadian company. The two companies together call themselves Portland-Montreal Pipe Line.