[Vision2020] An Ode to Helium

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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May 3, 2013
An Ode to Helium By GAIL
COLLINS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html>

We have not been paying nearly enough attention to helium legislation.

Seriously. We’ve been complaining about the way Congress fails at
everything except scheduling vacations. So it seems only fair to salute the
Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act. The way things are
going, it could be the most significant piece of legislation to make it
into law this year.

The issue is our helium stockpile, which is scheduled to go out of
business. The House approved a bipartisan bill to save the program just
before the members — yes! — left town for vacation. The Senate seems
inclined to go along, unless, of course, Ted Cruz decides it’s a United
Nations plot.

The House debate took two days, which some people felt was way more than
enough time, given the fact that the final vote was 394 to 1. The lone
“nay” came from Representative Linda Sanchez of California, who
accidentally pressed the wrong button.

Democrats complained that the House could have taken care of helium in an
hour, if the Republicans hadn’t been afraid of discussing anything else.
It’s been a tough stretch for Republican leaders, who had set aside several
days to debate a plan to improve the Obama health care act, before the
rank-and-file rejected the idea on the grounds that it might improve the
Obama health care act.

So, helium. “I’m pleased to support this bill, which shows that this Tea
Party Congress will make the tough choice to keep children’s birthday
parties on schedule and give industries that rely on helium the lift that
they deserve,” sniped Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia.

The second most popular theme for speeches, which Johnson ignored, was: *look,
helium is not a joke.*

“Despite what many think, helium is not just used for party balloons,” said
Representative Doc Hastings of Washington, the Republican who brought the
bill to the House floor.

Actually, if you’d heard the entire debate you would have been so impressed
with helium that you would be wondering whether it should be wasted on
balloons at all. It’s used in M.R.I. machines, scientific research, fiber
optics, aerospace technology. And it’s not all that easy to come by, being
the product of slow radioactive decay deep in the earth.

“It’s liquid down to absolute zero. You can pour it on M.R.I. magnets.
It’ll cool those superconductive magnets down. There’s nothing else like
it,” said Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, a physicist who has very
strong feelings about helium.

The United States began stockpiling helium after World War I because
Congress was worried about catching up with the Germans in the race to
build a fleet of dirigibles. Miraculously, despite the Pentagon’s affection
for continuing to build things that have no earthly use in modern warfare,
the government eventually cut back on the blimp program. But it kept the
stockpile going at a helium reserve near Amarillo, Tex.

In 1996, during the Newt Gingrich era, Congress voted to go out of the
helium business and let private enterprise take over as soon as the reserve
paid off the money the government had sunk into it.

Hasn’t quite worked out. The debt is almost paid off, but the magic of the
marketplace hasn’t kicked in. If the reserve closes now, the country loses
40 percent of its helium supply. So, last week, the House voted to extend
the program. “Many people don’t believe that the federal government should
be in the helium business, and I would agree,” said Hastings, as he pushed
the bill to keep the government in the helium business.

There are two ways to look at this story. One is that it’s about the
impossibility of ever actually stopping any government program. Former
Representative Barney Frank, who said in 1996 that if Congress could not
manage to get rid of the helium reserve “then we cannot undo anything,”
hasn’t changed his mind. “Everybody is against waste, but strongly defends
this or that particular piece,” Frank said in a phone interview.

He’s right. I have fond memories of listening to protests after Congress
managed, with great effort, to end a totally useless subsidy on mohair.
Most of the howls came from lawmakers from Texas, land of many mohair
goats. “I have a mohair sweater! It’s my favorite one!” cried Republican
Lamar Smith. The subsidy came creeping back a few years later.

But there’s another possible moral. The helium program is *great*; it
provided the country with a crucial product that business wasn’t prepared
to produce. It spurred economic growth and scientific research and made
enough profit to pay the taxpayers back.

Maybe the only mistake was trying to pull the plug in the first place.

“The federal government going into helium in the 1920s I think was a fine
thing,” said Holt. He looks upon the current bill not as a temporary fix
but as “a validation” of government’s role in looking after things that the
private sector is reluctant or afraid to take on.

The helium reserve, by the way, is still going to run dry in five or 10
years. Maybe private enterprise will step up to the plate. But if not,
somebody’s going to have to organize one hell of a balloon recycling
program.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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