After serving as the world’s largest provider of helium for nearly a century, the U.S. government is close to bowing out of the market. Aiming to recoup costs, it began emptying its vast underground reservoir of the gas in the 1990s and has now put the whole federal helium system up for sale.
The federal government began to hoard the gas 100 years ago to ensure supplies for military dirigibles and later, the space program. By the 1990s, Congress decided it had spent too much on the stockpile and directed the Bureau of Land Management to start selling it off. The agency did so at below market rates, which some say discouraged private companies from expanding their own helium operations.
Hayes fears the federal sale will only make things worse for scientists. Mark Elsesser, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society, helped craft a 2021 bill that would have extended the discount program for researchers for 8 years and bought time for labs to ramp up helium recycling capabilities. The bill went nowhere, but the senators’ letter urges the White House to revisit the idea as part of the sale.
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