Oil protest turns into song, dance

HELENA – Gov. Brian Schweitzer met with roughly 70 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 a 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 near the Montana/Idaho border in the Lolo National Forest.

Group members scaled the flagpoles in front of the Capitol and strung up a banner that read “Pipelines spill, Exxon kills. Big oil out of Montana.”