US Republicans Renew Push to Sanction Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

A group of US Senate Republicans said this week they had introduced legislation which would impose mandatory sanctions on Nord Stream 2, a Russian-backed natural gas pipeline which opponents believe would be harmful to US allies in Europe.

The six lawmakers, led by Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offered the measure as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a sweeping defence policy bill which is one of the few pieces of major legislation Congress passes every year.

Earlier this year President Biden and German Chancellor Merkel reached an agreement which allows the pipeline which will take Russian gas to Germany to proceed.

Ukraine has long opposed the nearly completed US$11 billion project because it will give Moscow the theoretical option to stop routing gas via Ukraine, which would deprive Kyiv of billions of dollars in lucrative transit fees and, it says, imperil its security.

Russia’s state energy company, Gazprom, and its Western partners have raced to finish the pipeline to send natural gas under the Baltic Sea.

Source: Pipeline & Gas Journal