U.S. lawmakers have included sanctions on companies helping Russia's gas giant Gazprom to complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project in the National Defense Authorization Act for the U.S. defense in 2020. The sanctions in the bill, which U.S. lawmakers must pass to authorize defense expenditures, would target subsea construction vessels that lay the pipeline and managers at firms connected with those vessels, two people familiar with the bill told Bloomberg. U.S. lawmakers have sought to pass a bill to levy sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project, which the United States sees as further undermining Europe's energy security by giving Russian gas giant Gazprom another pipeline to ship its natural gas to European markets. Germany, the end point of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, looks at the economic benefits of the project, while the U.S., including President Donald Trump, have been threatening sanctions on the project and even on Germany over its support for the project.