Hopes for Rep. Cox’s Helium Bill on Rise

It is like a giant gas bubble that won’t burst. And for years, it has given Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) a lot of heartburn.

But Cox may finally have succeeded in breaking up this bubble: the 31-billion-cubic-foot National Helium Reserve in Amarillo, Tex.

Just before Congress scooted out of town Monday, the House and Senate voted again to get the federal government out of the hot air business--a reserve that is $1.4 billion in debt to the federal treasury.

The helium program was begun in 1925 to help the military field blimps in time of war. In case no one noticed, the last blimps left the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station in 1949, but the helium reserve continued operating. There is now enough helium to serve the nation’s needs for the next century.

Yet, the program has been so resilient that when the federal government was shut down last year during the budget gridlock, the reserve was deemed “essential” and remained open.

Cox got wind of this obscure program a few years ago and set out to let the air out of the reserve.

“Let’s pop the bubble on some of the most blimped-out government waste. Let’s put an end to all the hot air coming out of Washington,” Cox said in 1993.

The following year, Cox called the helium program the “poster child of flabbiness.” Last year, it was labeled “the worst kind of government anachronism.” This year it became “the poster child of government waste.”

And on at least three separate occasions, the House and Senate voted to kill the program. But, as often happens in Washington, the bill to ax the program got involved in other people’s politics and managed to hang on. It even reached President Clinton’s desk last year, but was attached to the budget bill that the president vetoed.

Last week, it looked like the bill was going to die in the Senate. But Cox planted enough political booby traps in the legislative process to make sure the helium bill would reach the White House.

“It was a suitable ending,” Cox said, that “such a lighter-than-air bill” required so much heavy lifting in the final days.

After seeing the bill reach this point before only to see it fail, Cox is not yet celebrating.

“There’s no reason to prepare for disappointment, but I would still like to see the president’s signature on the bill,” Cox said.