Several demonstrators, some of them outfitted in traditional Native American garb, on Wednesday interrupted the Senate confirmation hearing of Scott Pruitt, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Shouting that this was a public hearing and she could not be ejected for disrupting it was one demonstrator dressed in a blue outfit bearing the initials "BP" for the oil company sentenced to pay a huge fine for the environmental catastrophe caused by the 2010 oil spill from one of its oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Just before the start of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing, about two dozen demonstrators pounded on the door of the committee room because they were not being allowed to enter.
The protesters pushed the security guards, who ended up detaining a woman who identified herself as JoAnn, a Native American from North Dakota.
Among the audience at the hearing was a group of men wearing blue outfits and coal mining helmets.
"We want to show our support for someone who finally is going to be on our side and is going to support our way of life," Jhon Yakonvich, a miner who works in West Virginia, told EFE.