- Feb 22, 2017
- 105,103
- 35,653
- 2,290
The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here’s why the medical world is worried.
On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium.
www.yahoo.com
On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium.
Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work.
So, I can admit I did not even know the Fed Govt had a helium stockpile. Turns out it goes all the way back to 1925.
Either way in 2013 congress passed a law that the Govt had to sell it all off, and that is finally being done, only a couple years later than the bill required.
It should be noted this bill passed the Senate with a vote of 97-2 and the House 394-1. The two no votes in the Senate were Repubs and the lone no vote in the House was a Dem.