[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14473-14474]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HELIUM STEWARDSHIP ACT OF 2013

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate a 
message from the House with respect to H.R. 527.
  The Presiding Officer laid before the Senate the following message 
from the House of Representatives:

       Resolved, That the House agreed to the amendment of the 
     Senate to the bill (H.R. 527) entitled ``An Act to amend the 
     Helium Act to complete the privatization of the Federal 
     helium reserve in a competitive market fashion that ensures 
     stability in the helium markets while protecting the 
     interests of American taxpayers, and for other purposes,'' 
     with an amendment.

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent the Senate concur in the House 
amendment to the Senate amendment; and the motion to reconsider be laid 
upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, we know that in Washington, DC, it is 
almost as if there is an inexhaustible capacity to manufacture false 
crises. I am pleased to say that with today's vote Congress avoided a 
real crisis for scores of American manufacturing and technology 
companies employing millions of American workers. That is because 
without the legislation that the Senate just passed, those workers and 
companies would no longer have been able to get access to helium, which 
is a critical industrial gas without which these companies cannot 
operate.
  In addition to avoiding an immediate crisis for these businesses and 
workers, the bipartisan legislation that passed the House of 
Representatives yesterday and the Senate today can be something of a 
model for how the Congress can act on must pass bills. Senator 
Murkowski and I have worked for many months on this legislation in the 
Energy and Natural Resources Committee to achieve a number of goals 
that members on both sides of the aisle support.
  First, our bipartisan legislation gets the Federal Government out of 
the helium business permanently--something that should have been done 
long ago. This bill also addresses the need to ensure helium supplies 
in the short term.
  It does this by requiring the Federal Government to shift from 
selling helium at a government-set price to selling helium at a market-
based priced. The bill does this over a 5-year period so that there is 
no panic, no sudden changes in supply, and American businesses can stop 
worrying about whether the helium supply truck is going to show up next 
month. The bill phases out commercial sales over the next 7 or 8 years 
and then gets the Federal Government out of the helium business 
entirely within 8 years by selling off the helium reserve. With prices 
for helium now reflecting their real value in the market place, the 
private sector will have the incentives it needs to invest in new 
helium supplies to replace the Federal reserve.
  Second, our bipartisan bill ends the Federal helium program in a way 
that is not only fully paid for but would actually lower the deficit by 
$90 million. I particularly want to point out the contributions of two 
of the members of our committee, Senators Risch and Flake who were 
instrumental in ensuring that while the helium program gets phased out 
some of the savings for taxpayers should go to contribute to deficit 
reduction. So I wanted to point out the Senators' role in shaping the 
legislation to ensure a significant contribution to deficit reduction.
  Contributing to deficit reduction, getting a better deal for 
taxpayers by transitioning helium sales to market rates and completely 
ending a Federal program that has gone far longer than it should have 
are priorities that all senators can support. And today's vote reflects 
that.
  But the benefits of this legislation are not limited to helium users 
and taxpayers. Our bipartisan legislation also provides one-year of 
funding for the Secure Rural School program that expired earlier this 
year. This program provides funding for schools, roads and law 
enforcement in hundreds of rural counties in 41 States where there are 
national forests.
  The expiration of the Secure Rural Schools Program left rural America 
out in the cold. The program needed to be extended for a year while the 
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee works on a longer term 
approach to meet the needs of forest dependent communities around the 
country.
  This is a more than 100-year-old commitment that the Federal 
Government made to these counties when the national forests were 
created and will have to be met one way or another. Our bill pays for a 
short-term extension of this program without raising taxes or 
increasing the debt.
  The bill before the Senate also includes a public-private program to 
help address the needs of one of our national treasures--America's 
National Parks. The bill creates a matching fund to leverage a $50 
million federal investment that must be matched dollar for dollar with 
non-Federal funding.
  The Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing earlier 
this year on the multi-billion funding backlog that our national parks 
are facing. Senator Coburn in particular has been a leader in pointing 
out the need to address this funding shortfall. The legislation that 
the Senate passed today makes a down payment toward reducing that 
backlog and does it in a way that brings private resources to the 
table.
  With legislation that passed today, the Senate and House have shown 
how they can act to accomplish a number of important goals on a 
bipartisan basis. The bill completely ends a Federal Government program 
that has outlived its useful life; it ensures a fair return for 
taxpayer and meets the needs of helium users; it contributes $90 
million to the Treasury for debt reduction; and it fulfills the Federal 
government's obligations to rural America all without raising taxes or 
increasing the debt.
  I also want to recognize the important contributions of the House 
Natural Resources Committee and Chairman Doc Hastings in shaping the 
legislation. The final bill was truly a bipartisan and bicameral 
effort. That is the way the legislative process is supposed to work.
  I am pleased that the Senate and House have been able to find a way 
to achieve all these important goals in one bipartisan, bicameral bill 
and I hope as the Congress considers other must-pass bills to keep the 
government open and to raise the debt ceiling, members can work 
together in the same type of cooperative bipartisan way, that Senator 
Murkowski and I and the other members of the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee have done in passing the helium legislation.

[[Page 14474]]


  Mr. REID. This is a very important piece of legislation. I wish we 
could do a lot more like this. This is the Helium Stewardship Act of 
2013. It is something we have had in effect since World War II. It is 
so very, very important.
  Today around America 750,000 people will have MRIs conducted to find 
out how sick they are or if they are hurt or sick. Without this bill 
passing, the big magnets they have in these machines, which are cooled 
only by one thing--helium--and the people who depend on this, the high-
tech industry would have to go out on the spot market and buy this 
stuff, which would increase the price of health care delivery, and the 
making computer chips and lots of other things.
  It is a shame it was held up for such a long time for no good reason. 
Now we have passed it, and I am very happy that everybody allowed this 
to happen.

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