Helium Stewardship Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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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.

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