US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, and Amos Hochstein, a top energy envoy at the State Department, held a briefing in Capitol Hill on Monday in order to persuade some of the Senate Democrats not to support the Republican Party's push for sanctions against Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Politico's Andrew Desiderio wrote.
Earlier, Republican Senator Ted Cruz presented draft legislation that suggests introducing sanctions against the pipeline within 15 days after being signed into law and allowing Congress to vote to reinstate the penalties should the president waive them.
The voting on the legislation is expected later this week but it is unlikely to be approved by the Senate, Politico reported, citing Democrats who have backtracked on their stance to impose sanctions against the pipeline. The senators who have changed their minds argue that sanctions against Nord Stream 2, which is a joint Russian-German project and is currently in the final stages of approval, would undermine unity with Germany, one of the US' key allies.
Nord Stream 2 is a $10.5 billion,1,230 km-long gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Its construction was completed in September 2021 but the certification process has not been finalised yet, with Berlin citing the need for Russian energy giant Gazprom to set up a limited liability company under German law to prove it has enough funding and independence from its Russian parent Gazprom.