‘This bill is crazy’: Legislature approves ban on geoengineering, weather modification

TALLAHASSEE, FLA. 1/4/23-Rep. Kevin Steele, R-Dade City, during the House Agriculture Conservation & Resiliency Subcommittee, Wednesday at the Capitol in Tallahassee. COLIN HACKLEY PHOTO

Legislation Gov. Ron DeSantis supports to crack down on suspected weather modification and geoengineering in Florida, including activity associated with so-called “chemtrails” is now cleared for his signature.

After another brief but contentious discussion on the House floor, the chamber voted 82-28 for SB 56, which would make unauthorized cloud seeding and other such activities a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a significantly hiked monetary fine of up to $100,000.

Each individual infraction would count as a separate violation, potentially leading to far longer and pricier penalties.

The bill, sponsored by Miami Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia and Tallahassee Republican Rep. Kevin Steele, would also direct the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to intake reports of suspected wrongdoing, investigate claims it deems warranting of further review and report its observations to the state’s health and emergency management agencies.

Beginning Oct. 1, operators of publicly owned airports must submit monthly reports to the Florida Department of Transportation on any aircraft equipped to disperse substances with climate-altering capabilities. Any airport failing to do so would lose state funding.

That last condition drew criticism from Democratic Reps. Anna Eskamani and Ashley Gantt, who raised issue with Florida’s ability to police airports, which generally fall under federal jurisdiction.

Eskamani noted that the legislation doesn’t clearly outline how DEP would investigate claims of suspected weather modification, nor does it detail a process by which the department would turn over its investigation to law enforcement.

Aside from those “practical concerns,” she said, there’s also the risk of curbing valuable scientific research and overburdening police while indulging “misinformation about problems that don’t exist.”

“This bill is feeding into conspiracy theories, and I think it’s important that we do not legislate under that type of pressure but that we legislate on science, we legislate on fact, we legislate not on fear but on information,” she said. “The fact that this bill does not require the consultation of a meteorologist, the consultation of scientists to say (whether this) is suspicious activity is absolutely going to create an environment where things will be reported nonstop, bogging down the department and now potentially bogging down law enforcement who have a lot of more important work to do.”

Gantt said the bill is the product of people who “need to get grounded.”

“There’s a phrase that I keep hearing lately, ‘Go outside and touch some grass,’” she said. “This bill is crazy to me.”

Steele mockingly referred to Eskamani and Gantt as “the two scientists that were on the floor talking” before diminishing the value of scientific input altogether.

“The last time we had to listen to the science, we wore masks for nine months,” he said.

He noted that as SB 56 and his version of the bill (HB 477) advanced through their respective committees, lawmakers heard from at least one person whose company, which he referred to as “Make It Rain,” puts “a lot of chemicals” into the air in Florida and several other states.

On April 2, DeSantis posted a video to X endorsing SB 56 and opposing weather modification and geoengineering aimed at causing more rainfall or less sunlight to permeate Earth’s atmosphere.

“We don’t want to indulge this nonsense in Florida, where we are proud of our sunshine,” he said.

SB 56 and HB 477 drew ample public testimony as they advanced through their respective chambers, including from actress and TV personality Marla Maples, President Donald Trump’s second wife, who suggested an increase in Alzheimer’s disease cases could be due to geoengineering.

Maples and others referenced a documentary on YouTube called “The Dimming” about alleged efforts to reduce solar radiation through aerosolization of chemicals including aluminum, barium and silver iodine.

Others testified about routinely seeing “unusual trails and streaks,” often called chemtrails. Chemtrails are a decades-old, debunked belief that contrails, the white lines of condensed water vapor that jets leave behind in the sky, are in fact toxic chemicals the government and other entities are using to alter the weather, sterilize people or control their minds.

Chemtrails conspiracy theories began circulating in the late ’90s after the U.S. Air Force published a report about weather modification. By 2001, federal bureaucracies had received thousands of communications about the fast-spreading concept, prompting numerous federal agencies and educational institutions to publish fact sheets to address public concerns.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a measure last April banning the “intentional injection, release or dispersion” of airborne chemicals. Six months later, Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia reignited the argument by declaring on X, “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” Greene’s comments drew censure from both sides of the aisle.

In March, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on X that banning weather modification and geoengineering “is a movement every MAHA needs to support,” referring to his initiative to “Make America Healthy Again.”

Two Republican members of the House — Jim Mooney of Islamorada and David Smith of Winter Springs — joined their Democratic colleagues Wednesday in voting against SB 56, which carries co-sponsorship from Republican Sens. Tom Leek of Ormond Beach, Clay Yarborough of Jacksonville and Joe Gruters of Sarasota.