HELENA – Gov. Brian Schweitzer met with roughly 70 oil pipeline protesters who occupied his office Tuesday and demanded he renounce his support for a new pipeline project.
Schweitzer told the group he would not cede to their demands before they started playing the piano and dancing on the big table in the governor’s reception room in apparent frustration with the direction of the meeting. Schweitzer left the room.
The pipeline protesters said the recent Exxon Mobil pipeline spill in the Yellowstone River requires the governor to oppose a pipeline for Canadian oil.
A spokesman said the protest was the culmination of an Earth First! rally in the western Montana woods.
Group members scaled the flag poles in front of the Capitol and strung up a banner that read “Pipelines spill, Exxon kills. Big oil out of Montana.”