The designation, formalized in the Federal Register on Tuesday, matters to Silicon Valley’s chip-equipment makers and to hospital MRI machines across the Bay Area.
The Energy Department has added helium to its list of materials critical to American energy and technology, a step it says will help secure supplies for semiconductor manufacturing after a war-driven shortage cut off roughly a third of the world’s output.
The notice, published in the Federal Register on Tuesday (91 FR 67558) by the department’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, follows Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s announcement of the designation on Friday. It describes helium as “non-substitutable for multiple critical energy functions, including: semiconductor manufacturing, leak testing natural gas infrastructure, and quantum computing, along with being essential to key medical/scientific applications.”
The administration’s case
The department said helium meets the definition of a critical material in the Energy Act of 2020: a material with a high risk of supply disruption that serves an essential function in energy technologies. It pointed to rising demand from advanced chipmaking and data centers, and to bottlenecks at home.
“Despite the nation’s abundant helium resources, limited refining capacity and lengthy permitting timelines continue to constrain U.S. production,” the department said in its announcement.
“President Trump is bringing back America’s manufacturing industry, and that means making sure we have the materials needed to build things in America again,” Mr. Wright said. “Helium is essential to producing the semiconductors and advanced technologies that power our economy. By designating helium as a critical material, we are taking another step toward securing our supply chains, creating American jobs, and ensuring the United States leads the world in energy and technological innovation.”
Audrey Robertson, the assistant secretary who signed the notice on Oct. 21, said the department was “taking decisive action to ensure American manufacturers have reliable access to helium as a critical resource they need.”
Why now
The decision comes seven months into a supply crisis. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in February trapped about a third of the world’s helium supply in the Persian Gulf, and Iranian strikes in March hit Ras Laffan, the Qatari gas complex that produces much of it, CBS News reported. The designation came days after a “60 Minutes” report on the shortage.
It is not the first squeeze. Brad Borggard, chief financial officer of North American Helium, a Canadian producer, told NPR in April that this was the fifth helium shortage in 20 years, a pattern he tied to supply concentrated in “geopolitically” challenged regions like the Middle East and Russia.
The United States is in a stronger position than most buyers. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, American operations produced an estimated 81 million cubic meters of helium in 2025, the most of any country and well ahead of Qatar’s 63 million, out of about 190 million worldwide. The country is a net exporter, though it still imports helium, mainly from Canada and Qatar. The agency counted six new domestic helium operations last year.
What the label does, and does not do
Placement on the list makes helium eligible for Energy Department programs aimed at critical materials. CBS News reported that the designation makes more federal financing available to helium producers. The trade publication gasworld cautioned that the designation by itself “does not provide new funding or introduce measures to accelerate permitting or expand capacity,” though it could strengthen the investment case for extraction and refining projects.
The Energy Department’s list is separate from the Interior Department’s critical minerals list maintained by the Geological Survey, which dropped helium in 2022. Industry advocates had pressed for helium to be restored. “With global supply chains facing increasing uncertainty, the need to develop reliable domestic sources of helium has never been more urgent,” Cliff Cain, president of the exploration company Pulsar Helium, said after the decision, according to gasworld.
The department’s list was first compiled in 2023 under the Biden administration, drawing on the bipartisan Energy Act of 2020. The Trump administration added metallurgical coal, used in steelmaking, in 2025. With helium, CBS News reported, the list now includes 20 materials. The notice also cites the administration’s AI Action Plan.
The federal government has also stepped back from the helium business. The Bureau of Land Management sold the Federal Helium System near Amarillo, Texas, to the industrial gas company Messer in 2024, a deal that returned $460 million to the Treasury, according to gasworld.
The Bay Area stakes
Helium is used throughout chip fabrication, and the USGS estimates that controlled atmospheres for semiconductors and fiber optics account for about 17 percent of American consumption. Magnetic resonance imaging accounts for about 15 percent; a single MRI scanner holds roughly 2,000 liters of liquid helium, a Johns Hopkins radiologist told NPR.
That puts the Bay Area squarely in the supply chain. Applied Materials in Santa Clara and Lam Research in Fremont build the equipment that chip factories run on, and hospitals across the region depend on MRI scanners. Price is a concern but not yet a crisis for chipmakers: Scotten W. Jones, president of the consulting firm Semiconductor Manufacturing Economics, told NPR that if helium “doubled in price, quadrupled in price, it wouldn’t impact semiconductors a whole lot.”
The Semiconductor Industry Association did not respond to a request for comment.
The view from Energy and Commerce
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the Energy Department, has been working the same issue from Capitol Hill. In February, the House passed H.R. 3617, the Securing America’s Critical Minerals Supply Act by Rep. John James, Republican of Michigan, which directs the department to assess and strengthen supply chains for critical energy resources.
“Right now, the technologies that power our grid rely on critical minerals produced and controlled by adversarial nations,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Brett Guthrie, Republican of Kentucky, said in a statement at the time.
The Inquirer found no public statement on the helium designation from the committee’s Democrats, led by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey. The list it amends grew out of the Energy Act of 2020, which passed with support from both parties.
Callum Petrossian covers the House Natural Resources, Energy and Commerce, and Transportation and Infrastructure committees, from power grids and offshore leasing to water projects, highways and disaster aid, for the Inquirer’s Energy & Environment desk. More from Callum Petrossian
