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Small business owner says Keystone pipeline shutdown devastated her monthly revenue

February 10, 2021

The cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline not only affected the laid-off workers, but also the surrounding community, South Dakota resident and small business owner Tricia Burns said on Wednesday.

"We lost 45 memberships. That's over $3,000 in monthly revenue that was gone literally within 48 hours. We had negotiated contracts with two security companies that were coming in to secure the pipeline. That would have brought us another 120 memberships. That [more than] doubles what we have just in our local town," the owner of Ignite Wellness Studio told "Fox & Friends."

Sen. Joe Manchin wrote a letter to President Biden Tuesday asking him to rethink his executive order revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit.

"Pipelines continue to be the safest mode to transport our oil and natural gas resources and they support thousands of high-paying, American union jobs," the West Virginia Democrat wrote.

On his first day in office, the president canceled the pipeline's permit, which Donald Trump had reinstated. The long-disputed project was meant to deliver about 800,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil to the U.S.

"In the absence of access to pipelines, crude oil will continue to find its way to market through increased reliance on other modes of transport, like truck and rail, which have a higher number of reported releases of crude oil per ton-mile than pipelines," Manchin noted.

"I encourage you to reconsider your decision to revoke the cross-border permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and take into account the potential impacts of any further action to safety, jobs, and energy security," he added.

Republican South Dakota congressman Dusty Johnson accompanied Burns on the segment, highlighting that Biden's move to cancel the pipeline could discourage entrepreneurship and job creation.

"One of the reasons that America's economy generally over-performs other countries' economies is that we've had predictable and consistent regulation and President Biden really risks that," Johnson said.

"This is going to have a chilling impact on investment, not just for large projects like Keystone XL, but all the rest of Americans that we want to be entrepreneurs," he added, pointing to other stories from the area of businesses being affected by the Keystone shutdown.

"The reality is this is not the way our country should be doing business."

He called on congressional Democrats to join Republicans on a bill to pressure Biden to reverse course.