State Senator Paul Pinsky Arrested at White House Pipeline Protest

Maryland State Senator Paul Pinsky (D-Dist. 22) was arrested outside the White House on Friday afternoon. Pinksy, who represents part of Prince George’s County, and about 150 environmental activists were arrested while protesting the Keystone pipeline project.

If the plan is approved it would transport crude oil through the continental United States—connecting the tar sands in Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Texas coast.

"I think we're taking the wrong direction," said Pinsky, who was reached by phone after being released from U.S. Park Police Headquarters in Anacostia Park. "We should be going for clean energy, wind and solar."

For years scientists have told us we can't rely on fossil fuel and urged us to reduce our carbon emissions, Pinsky pointed out, "But now we're being told to support this pipeline that will not only increase our reliance on fossil fuel, but transfer it down to the Gulf, as carbon tense oil, heavy oil, tar oil, that is even more damaging than regular oil."

Pinsky reported that he was charged with failure to obey a lawful order—for refusing to move from the front of the White House—and that he was fined $100.

The protests against the pipeline began on August 20 and are scheduled to end on Saturday, Sept. 3. Other arrestees have included actress Daryl Hannah and the director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies James Hansen.

Pinsky said this is the fourth time he has been arrested for protesting about issues he cared about.

“This is not the first time I’ve done this kind of thing,” said Pinsky, who noted he had also been arrested about 25 years ago for protesting against apartheid at the South African embassy, “[If] anything comes up you have to let your voice and actions speak for themselves, and that’s what I did.”

Pinksy was a primary sponsor of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act of 2009, which Governor Martin O’Malley signed into law in May of 2009. It requires the state of Maryland to achieve a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 2006 levels by 2020. Pinsky has also been a proponent of wind farms off the coast of Maryland.