On Friday, members of 350-Missoula, Blue Skies Campaign, Northern Rockies Rising Tide and CAJA3 (Community Action for Justice in the Americas, Africa, and Asia) held a sit-in at the Missoula office of Senator Steve Daines to protest the senator’s denial of climate change science and his support for fossil fuel projects like coal exports, the Otter Creek Coal Mine, and the Keystone XL pipeline.

Fourteen people were arrested for refusing to leave Daines’s office in a peaceful act of civil disobedience, while around 70 supporters stood outside holding protest signs.

“We are here today because we want our elected representatives to stop greenlighting harmful industries such as coal exports and the Keystone XL pipeline, and to support renewable energy and a clean, sustainable economy,” said Meaghan Browne from Butte.

Since taking office at the beginning of this year, newly elected Senator Steve Daines has repeatedly sided with big polluters despite concerns expressed by his constituents. Daines opposes rules to curb carbon pollution from power plants, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates would prevent between 2,700 and 6,600 premature deaths.

Upon being sworn into the Senate, he immediately made promoting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline one of his top priorities. While running for the Senate in 2014, Daines even traveled to Washington State to lobby for construction of a coal export terminal that would allow companies like St Louis-based Arch Coal to send Montana coal to China.

Friday’s peaceful protest was the culmination of months of interactions between Daines’ office and Missoula groups concerned about climate change. In December, members of 350-Missoula and Blue Skies Campaign met with Daines’s staff and asked the incoming senator to take several specific actions to reduce climate change, including supporting renewable energy tax incentive programs and opposing large new fossil fuel projects.

Instead of addressing these issues, in January Daines joined 48 other Republicans in voting against a Senate resolution that would have acknowledged the evidence for human-caused climate change.

“Again and again social movements have had to escalate to peaceful civil disobedience when elected officials failed to represent their constituents,” said Jess Moore, one of the participants who was arrested at the sit-in.

“We’ve written letters, sent emails, met with his staff, and he has refused to engage in a meaningful dialogue to address the imminent dangers of human-caused climate change. That’s why this act of civil disobedience is necessary.”

Participants in Friday’s peaceful protest included parents and grandparents, students, teachers, retirees, and small business owners from throughout the greater Missoula area and other parts of Montana including Butte, Superior, and the Flathead Valley. The groups involved intend to continue organizing peaceful protests that put public pressure on Montana lawmakers from both political parties who stand in the way of action on climate change.

Originally published by Blue Skies Campaign