Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve Contributor(s): National Research Council (Author), Division on Engineering and Physical Sci (Author), National Materials Advisory Board (Author) |
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ISBN: 0309149797 ISBN-13: 9780309149792 Publisher: National Academies Press OUR PRICE: $44.65 Product Type: Paperback Published: July 2010 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Political Science | Public Policy - Science & Technology Policy - Science | Energy |
Dewey: 338.476 |
LCCN: 2010283530 |
Physical Information: 156 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Helium has long been the subject of public policy deliberation and management, largely because of its many strategic uses and its unusual source-it is a derived product of natural gas and its market has several anomalous characteristics. Shortly after sources of helium were discovered at the beginning of the last century, the U.S. government recognized helium's potential importance to the nation's interests and placed its production and availability under strict governmental control. In the 1960s, helium's strategic value in cold war efforts was reflected in policies that resulted in the accumulation of a large reserve of helium owned by the federal government. The latest manifestation of public policy is expressed in the Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (1996 12 Act), which directs that substantially all of the helium accumulated as a result of those earlier policies be sold off by 2015 at prices sufficient to repay the federal government for its outlays associated with the helium program. The present volume assesses whether the interests of the United States have been well served by the 1996 Act and, in particular, whether selling off the helium reserve has had any adverse effect on U.S. scientific, technical, biomedical, and national security users of helium. |