The Third Fossil Fuel: Why It’s Time for Minnesota to Plan to Phase Out Oil

By: Akilah Sanders-Reed, MCEA Program Associate 

Northern Minnesota is known for its lakes, loons, wild rice, and tall birch and pines–but beneath the land runs a corridor of six massive oil pipelines transporting millions of barrels of carbon-intensive tar sands oil per day into and across the upper Midwest. MCEA asked an expert to help us understand how much of this oil Minnesotans rely on, where the rest of the oil goes, and what we can do to protect against the threats it poses to our climate, our water, and our communities.

Fossil Fuels & the Climate Crisis

The climate crisis is driven primarily by greenhouse gas emissions from combusting fossil fuels: coal, natural gas, and oil. Minnesota has been working hard to tackle the first two sources. Over the past 20 years, the state has led the way on phasing out coal: today, every remaining coal plant in Minnesota is scheduled to retire by 2035, and Minnesota has committed in statute to use 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 (solar and wind already produce 25% of Minnesota’s electricity). More recently, Minnesota has turned its attention to gas, with proceedings underway at Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission to plan for phasing out gas from our heat and appliances.

Meanwhile, lurking beneath northern Minnesota’s beautiful lakes and forests is a superhighway of oil pipelines transporting over 3 million barrels of dirty tar sands oil per day from Alberta, Canada, into the United States. This corridor of pipelines is called the Enbridge Mainline, and is owned by the Canadian corporation Enbridge Energy.

The tar sands oil transported through the Enbridge Mainline is 20-30% more carbon-intensive than conventional crude oil because of the energy it takes to extract and refine it. And the three million barrels of oil per day transported on Enbridge pipelines in northern Minnesota generate over one billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year–that’s the equivalent of around 250-300 coal plants.

But oil demand in the upper Midwest has peaked. In fact, demand for gasoline, the main product we derive from oil, peaked before 2005 in Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois. Why, then, given its clear consequences for our climate, are companies like Enbridge still pumping millions of barrels of oil through our state? 

The answer is simple. Unless and until Minnesota plans for an oil-free future that prioritizes protecting our land and water, global oil suppliers like Enbridge will continue exploiting our state for their own gain. 

Minnesota’s Oil Conundrum

Minnesota has taken action to reduce our oil demand, such as adopting the Clean Cars Standard in 2021 and establishing clear goals to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Those initiatives have helped–and will continue to help–to curb Minnesota’s transportation emissions. However, while Minnesota’s demand for oil has decreased, the supply of oil flowing through Enbridge’s system has actually increased.

It begs the question: if Minnesota is using less oil, where is all that supply going? 

MCEA decided to ask an expert.

Peter Erickson, an oil economics and emissions researcher, took a look for us. Here are some of his key findings:

• Less than 60% of the oil transported through Minnesota on the Enbridge Mainline is used in the Midwest, even though our landscape and rivers are put at risk of spills every day.
• Oil demand in the upper Midwest has peaked, meaning the era of oil pipeline expansion can end and regulators should prepare to scale back the pipeline system.
• Even under the current federal administration’s pro-fossil-fuel policies and with no significant societal shifts, we could begin decommissioning some of Enbridge’s pipelines in Minnesota around 2030 without price shocks at the gas pump.
• Continued operation of the Enbridge Mainline would send an increasing amount of oil through Minnesota for export to other countries, enabling Enbridge to chase market share in a stagnant global oil market, while continuing to expose Minnesota’s waters to ongoing risk. 

Learn more by reading the full white paper here

The data is clear: it’s time to phase out oil

It is time for Minnesota to make a plan to phase out the Enbridge Mainline system. We need a phased, ambitious decommissioning plan that ensures our communities’ energy needs are met while protecting us from pollution, climate chaos, and abandoned infrastructure.

This will require a shift in how we regulate oil pipelines. Regulators must take a closer look at whether this infrastructure is still needed, given that data show that scaling back the system is practical, possible, and necessary.

We’ve seen what’s possible when regulators make long-term plans to transform our energy systems. In October, the last coal plant in New England shut down, three years ahead of schedule.

We are seeing the results now of planning and persistence that began decades ago to set retirement dates for coal plants, and consistently work to meet or accelerate those retirement dates. We can follow the same roadmap for phasing out oil, starting with Enbridge’s Mainline system in Minnesota.

We know we won’t get there overnight, but data show that it’s prudent and possible to lay the groundwork for phasing out the third and final leg of the fossil fuel stool. MCEA played a critical role in Minnesota’s success in phasing out coal and is actively engaged in pushing our state agencies and utilities to plan for a gas-free future. We are equally committed to doing the same on oil–by both continuing to champion policies that reduce Minnesotans’ reliance on oil for things like transportation, and making sure our energy infrastructure serves us, not the whims of fossil fuel companies.

Learn more about the other reasons we should phase out the Enbridge Mainline and MCEA’s history of advocacy for responsible oil infrastructure decisions here.

We would like to thank our partners at the Three Waters Pipeline Resistance Team for their collaboration.

Sources:  

1. Minn. Stat. 216B.1691
2. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Minnesota 2005-2022 (2025) at 13.
3. Fresh Energy, New law paves the way for deeper understanding of the future of gas in Minnesota (2021).
4. Based on A Giant Step Backward (2020).
5. Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Advancing Transportation Electrification in Minnesota.
6. Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2022 Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan (2022) at 105.
7. “Midwest” is based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts, in which the Midwest includes fifteen states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.