RIGHT SPEAK: Natural Gas Industry is backing Congress' efforts to speed exports to Ukraine and other European Countries

The U.S. natural gas industry is backing Capitol Hill efforts to get the Energy Department to expedite gas sales overseas in a bid to undercut Russian influence, saying the U.S. government has dragged its feet.

Lawmakers have been pushing to speed up the export-approval process to help loosen Russia's energy grip over Ukraine and other countries, even if immediate changes might not do much to address the current crisis in Ukraine.

FILE: Feb. 5, 2014: The pier at Dominion's Cove Point liquefied

natural gas plant on Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. REUTERS

The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas -- which represents at least one company poised to start exportation -- acknowledged Wednesday that hastening the Energy Department's approval process is only a small piece of the puzzle toward making Ukraine and other countries less dependent on Russian gas.

However, the department for years has not followed its own rules and regulations on issuing permits, group President Bill Cooper said.

“Congress is trying to get the agency to do what it already should have done,” Copper said. “To say we’d be selling gas today, that’s not true. But the Energy Department needs to act. If it had, we wouldn’t be speculating about Ukraine today.”

Cooper, a former House Energy and Commerce Committee lawyer, argues the industry isn’t asking the agency to change its policies -- only follow its existing rules and regulations on approving permits at the end of public-comment periods.

And beyond the issue of whether such changes would get natural gas supplies quickly overseas, Jamie McInerney, an energy expert at Washington, D.C.-based FTI Consulting, said hastening the approval process would undoubtedly send a “huge market signal” to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he has only temporary control over Europe’s natural gas supply.