[jmaroneps37]

Hats off to someone with the facts.

[mazda77]

The helium that is in the atmosphere comes from alpha particles emitted by radioactive decay (see How Nuclear Radiation Works for details on alpha decay). In places that have a lot of uranium ore, natural gas tends to contain high concentrations of helium (up to 7 percent). This makes sense, since the decay of uranium emits lots of alpha particles and a natural gas pocket tends to be a sealed container underground.

Helium is cryogenically distilled out of natural gas to produce the helium we put in balloons.

I would wager there are two issues here at the heart of all this. First, with our rapid rising of natural gas production from fracking, the government is afraid of losing that control of a marketable product. As it is also a residual of atomic energy, increasing our footprint in that regard would also cut into their little pie.