Responsible Helium Administration and Storage Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon. This bill is something that shows we can work across the lines of politics in this institution.

I began this bill with Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington State, in the House of Representatives a year ago. It passed over there. Now it is over here in the Senate, and the same kind of bipartisanship is working to pass this critical bill which is central for companies like Siemens, Philips, and GE just in Massachusetts that support thousands of jobs in the high-tech sector.

There was a shutdown that was looming, but it was a shutdown in the helium industry. This is one shutdown that we are going to make sure does not happen. I thank the chairman for making this possible because it took a lot of leadership to make sure that House bill, the Hastings-Markey bill, is now over here, and it has been solved in a way that every Member should feel very comfortable voting yes for because it really is going to solve a big problem that was going to hit our high-tech industry in the United States.

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