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Thousands surround the White House to Protest TransCanada Pipeline

Posted by: JaredFurtado on Nov 7, 2011

By: Lee-Anne Goodman, The Canadian Press

Thousands of demonstrators, including movie stars and a Nobel laureate, surrounded the White House on Sunday to protest a proposed Canadian pipeline that's serving as a flashpoint for the U.S. environmental movement while resonating with Americans fed up with corporate interests.

The demonstration is the latest in a series of White House protests aimed at convincing U.S. President Barack Obama to thwart Calgary-based TransCanada's attempts to build the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry Alberta oilsands crude through six American states to Gulf Coast refineries.

Mark Ruffalo, nominated for an Academy Award last year, and Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on banning landmines, were among a sea of protesters who marched along several downtown blocks, including past the U.S. Treasury building, before surrounding the White House in a mammoth circle.

Bill McKibben, a leading U.S. environmentalist and one of the protest's organizers, described the scene as both "a big O-shaped hug" or "a symbolic house arrest."

Obama, however, was golfing in northern Virginia for most of the afternoon. His motorcade arrived back at the White House just before 5 p.m. without any interference from the protesters.

"I have heard he's gone golfing but he has to drive through the wonderful circle to get back to his house, so that's perfect," Canadian actress Margot Kidder, who was arrested at a similar White House protest in August, said earlier on Sunday.

Ruffalo was on hand to address the protesters before they began their march, some of them carrying a giant fake pipeline emblazoned with the words Stop The XL Pipeline.

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