UPDATED 14:23 PM EST, February 15, 2013
The Government Accountability Office, Congress' watchdog agency, said there are urgent questions facing federal storage, sales and purchases of helium.
Not much planning has been done past 2015, the GAO said, and the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management must decide how to use helium in federal stores and at what price to sell it.
"During the 1960s and early 1970s, Interior purchased about 34 billion cubic feet of crude helium for conservation purposes and to meet federal helium needs, such as for the space program and scientific research," the GAO said.
