Hi all,
Though we got some great news last week about resolving the helium crisis, the relevant legislation hasn't fully passed yet, and we're going to have to continue alerting Congress and the President to the urgency of the matter.
Our colleague Yoshitaka Ishii at the University of Illinois at Chicago provided us this good summary last Friday, and I'm forwarding it to AMMRL for wider benefit. His statement is followed by links to the relevant petitions Dean Olsen provided us. PLEASE ACT!
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> To colleagues:
>
> This is a quick update about the helium crisis. Looks like that the crisis is likely averted, as the Senate passed the House bill yesterday in a rush mode as some of you have heard. The bill would allow for continued operation of Federal Helium Reserve.
> http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2013/09/u.s.-senate-passes-bill-head-helium-shortage
>
> Based on the Science article (link above) and other news, the bill passed by the Senate is a slightly different version from the original House version. It appears that the modified bills still needs to be approved by the House again. According to the Science article, "it is not yet a done deal". So let's watch the situation carefully until the House resolves the small differences with the Senate.
>
> Many thanks to the people who signed the petition at WH. We collected ~1500 signatures within 2 days. I have heard that many of you also called or e-mailed your Senators and Representatives. The pressure probably has speeded up the process at the Senate.
>
> Cheers,
> Yoshitaka
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**CURRENT STATUS AND NEED FOR CONTINUING ACTION:
The bill in question is H.R. 527, the "Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act of 2013", and you can track its status here:
http://tinyurl.com/k3ragby
As of early afternoon on Monday 9/23, the amended bill is awaiting a vote by the U.S. House of Representatives. If the House approves it, then the President still has to sign it to make it a law (which the White house has stated he will do: http://tinyurl.com/l87bntl
**OUR PROBLEM: The House isn't in session this week, so the Congresspeople aren't even there to vote on this bill! A staffer in my rep's office told me that they plan on reconvening later this week, but they plan to focus entirely on the current budget crisis, and are very unlikely to take up the helium question. The next time they are scheduled to be available for a vote is September 30, and according to this calendar, they will not be voting before 6:30 PM:
http://majorityleader.gov/calendar/113thCongressFirstSession-Monthly.pdf
The SCHEDULING of the final House vote is now the critical problem. The National Helium Reserve is going to begin shutting down its operations on October 1 so it will be fully closed on October 7 (you can all understand how it will take several days to ramp down such a large operation). We thus need to get this legislation approved by the House and signed by the President right away - preferably before October 1.
**WE STILL NEED TO URGE THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE TO BRING THIS UP FOR A VOTE, AND URGE THE PRESIDENT TO SIGN THE LEGISLATION IMMEDIATELY
****
****WHAT TO DO****:
1) Contact the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and urge him to put H.R. 527 on the House agenda for September 30 or sooner. ANYONE can contact him, regardless of where you live. I would urge people outside the U.S. to focus on him over other representatives. Here's where you find his contact information:
http://www.speaker.gov/contact
2) Anyone living and working in the U.S. should contact their House representatives to urge them to VOTE YES on HR527. (If you are not a U.S. citizen but you are working in the U.S., you are still considered a constituent, and you should use the address of your employer when locating your representative). You can find your representative with your ZIP code here:
http://www.house.gov
I suggest making a PHONE CALL to get your voice heard.
3) As our colleague Dean Olsen informed us last week, sign the following petitions (if you haven't already done so):
White House petition (Initiated thanks to Yoshitaka Ishii):
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-risk-our-jobs-health-and-science-diminishing-us-helium-supply-closure-federal-helium-reserve/444QRQw0
ACS petition:
https://secure3.convio.net/acs1/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=151
4) Contact the White House directly to urge the President to sign the bill immediately. If Congress passes HR527 and the President does not sign it in time, the helium supply will still be disrupted.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
(If communicating on the web, please provide this link to a White House statement supporting this bill:
http://tinyurl.com/l87bntl )
5) Forward this email to colleagues, friends, and family, and urge them to take these same actions, too.
In any written/web communication, please use links to the following articles from C&EN, which their editors made freely available to the public to help our cause:
http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i37/Helium-Headache.html
http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i5/Coping-Helium-Shortage.html
*****
Thank you all for your attention, but even more for your ACTION!
- Josh
Josh Kurutz, Ph.D.
jkurutz_at_alumni.caltech.edu
773-315-5732
www.joshkurutz.com
www.linkedin.com/in/jkurutz
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Yoshitaka Ishii <yishii_at_uic.edu>
> Subject: A Good News about Helium Crisis
> Date: September 20, 2013 6:56:33 PM CDT
> To: Yoshitaka Ishii <yishii_at_uic.edu>
>
>
Received on Mon Sep 23 2013 - 08:44:37 MST