Lobbying for Russian oil pipeline to Europe spikes in US
As US lawmakers plot to stop one of Moscow’s most important projects in Europe, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, lobbyists supporting it are busier than ever.
The pipeline linking Russian gas fields to Western Europe has become a lightning rod of contention in US-Russia relations.
The Trump administration is concerned it would expand the region’s energy dependence on Moscow, but backers say the gas is needed.
US President Donald Trump has already signed a sanctions bill that delayed construction on the $11bn (R190bn) project owned by Russia’s state-run Gazprom and headed by Alexei Miller, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But lawmakers fearful the measures are not enough to prevent the pipeline’s completion are contemplating further action.
Nord Stream 2 AG paid lobbyists at BGR Group, Roberti Global LLC and Sweeney & Associates $1.69m (R29.1m) during the first half of 2020, according to Senate records — more than double the same period in 2019 and more than all of 2018.
Who the lobbyists meet with is a mystery because they have not registered with the department of justice under the Foreign Agent Registration Act.
Under Fara, lobbyists must disclose every meeting with US officials and the materials they distribute.
Instead, the Nord Stream 2 lobbyists have registered under the 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act, a law that amended Fara by allowing lobbyists for foreign companies or individuals to report much less information as long as their work is not intended to benefit a foreign government.
Nord Stream 2 representatives and the lobbying companies did not respond to requests for comment.
A senior Trump administration official said the lobbyists were seeking to further Moscow’s national interests.
Lobbyists for Nord Stream 2’s foreign opponents, by contrast, have registered under Fara. Yorktown Solutions LLC, for example, which lobbies for Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz and its partner companies against the pipeline, is among them.
Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev said company representatives travelled to Washington monthly to provide updates on Nord Stream 2 and discuss how to stop the pipeline.
Nord Stream 2 will double the capacity of an existing line to Germany under the Baltic Sea to 110 billion m³ of gas a year, enough for 26 million households. It would circumvent US ally Ukraine, depriving it of potentially billions of dollars in transit fees, and compete with US efforts to sell liquefied natural gas into Europe.
Several US senators are pushing new sanctions that would target insurers of Gazprom vessels that would lay the last 160km of pipe in Danish waters.
Nord Stream 2 backers say Germany and other European countries need Russian gas, and Germany has threatened retaliation if US sanctions stop the project.
Austria’s OMV, German firms Uniper and Wintershall, Royal Dutch Shell and France’s Engie provide half the long-term financing. —