The US Department of Justice has sided with a Native American tribe in claiming a massive underground pipeline carrying fuel from Wisconsin to Canada is trespassing on tribal lands.

In an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, DOJ lawyers agreed with the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians in arguing that Enbridge Energy Company, is "liable for trespass" due to its operation of Line 5, a pipeline that moves millions of gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids each day between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario,

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.