Science funding & policy
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.
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All rights held excluding Japan, China, Republic of Korea
Marketing Information
http://www.nap.edu/12844
National Academies Press
The National Academies Press (NAP) publish the reports of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. They published more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics.
View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher National Academies Press
- Publication Date July 2010
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9780309149792
- Publication Country or regionUnited States
- FormatPaperback
- Primary Price 34.25 USD
- Pages156
- ReadershipProfessional and scholarly
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions10 x 7 inches
- Biblio NotesRelated Digital edition - 9780309149808 . Copyright year 2010.
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