US worries Iran sanctions benefiting Russia energy sector

Crippling sanctions targeting Iran's energy sector are a bonanza for Russia's oil and gas industries, a key lawmaker warned Wednesday.

Many countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are heavily reliant on imports for their energy needs. In the wake of U.S.-led sanctions aimed at Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, Russia has been filling the gap, the outgoing chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel on Europe and Eurasia said Wednesday.

“Sanctions are an essential tool in our continued attempts to isolate the Iranian regime,” Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) said at a hearing on the Iranian threat to the South Caucasus and surrounding region. “However, we must recognize that for many countries in this subcommittee's jurisdiction, decreasing consumption of Iranian energy means increasing consumption of Russian energy.

“Such a chain reaction is not in the national interest of the United States.”

Ariel Cohen of the conservative Heritage Foundation testified at the hearing that the Obama administration should help European countries diversify their energy supplies. He said the United States has a role to play in helping Turkey and Europe finish the Trans-Anatolian natural gas pipeline from Azerbaijan through Turkey to Europe, as well as the Nabucco gas pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria, a key gas hub in Central Europe.

“The solution to this problem,” Burton said, “requires renewed American leadership to increase the development of resources that lie across the South Caucasus and Central Asia as well as the infrastructure – the pipelines – needed to transport these resources to European consumers.”