Environmentalist protesters have been arrested outside the White House on the first day of a planned two-week protest over a proposed oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

U.S. Park Police spokesman David Schlosser tells WJLA-TV that 65 people were arrested Saturday. The protest is scheduled to run through Sept. 3.

The protesters want President Barack Obama to deny a permit for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline. It would go through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas.

Gus Speth, co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and one of the protesters tells the Wall Street Journal the pipeline would continue the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

TransCanada says its pipeline would provide jobs and needed oil.