RFK Jr. Arrested Along With Daryl Hannah At Keystone Pipeline Protest

RFK Jr. was arrested yesterday at a White House protest along with several others including star Daryl Hannah.

RFK Jr. was arrested along with dozens of other environmental protesters, Sierra Club President Allison Chin and Executive Director Michael Brune among them — and Politico reports that the arrests “made Wednesday’s event the first officially sanctioned act of civil disobedience allowed in the environmental group’s 120-year history.”

Also among those arrested with RFK Jr. at the protest was NASA climate scientist James Hansen, and all were charged with failure to disperse and obey lawful orders.

After the arrests made news, Brune addressed the decision by the group to allow the protests to escalate and talked about the Keystone XL oil pipeline and why the group so vociferously opposes it. LoHud.com quotes Brune:

” ‘We want to send a strong message that we expect the president’s ambitions to meet the scale of the challenge and reject a pipeline that carries dirty, thick oil’ that contributes to global warming, Brune said. The president’s supporters want Obama to ‘fight with both fists’ against climate change, Brune said.”

RFK Jr. (son of Robert F. Kennedy) smiled as he was arrested and cuffed during the protest and later commented that the Keystone XL oil pipeline was “a boondoggle of monumental proportions” and added that it will “ruin the lives of millions of people” if allowed to continue.

Brune cited civil disobedience as necessary to affect certain large scale changes and said:

“If you look at American history, civil disobedience has been used at very important times in our country’s history. It helped secure for women the right to vote, to protect the old growth forests on the West Coast, helped end discrimination against gays and lesbians. It helped to end segregation. We know the president believes climate change is a moral threat to our country. We’re here to make sure his ambition meets the scale of this challenge.”

After RFK Jr. was arrested at the protest, he and the others taken in were released on $100 bond.