Florida AG orders airports to report ‘weather modification' activities
Uthmeier urged all public-use airports in Florida in a Monday letter to adhere to Senate Bill 56, which was signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last month. Violators of the law face third-degree felony charges and a fine as high $100,000.
'Injecting our atmosphere with novel chemical compounds to block the sun is a dangerous path, especially in Florida, where sunshine is our most valuable resource,' Uthmeier said in the letter, the copy of which he shared on the social media platform X. 'Furthermore, as our hearts break for the victims of the flash floods in Texas, I can't help but notice the possibility that weather modification could have played a role in this tragedy.'
The law went into effect at the beginning of this month. The legislation bars the intentional release of substances, compounds and chemicals into the atmosphere in hopes of changing the weather, climate and temperature.
From Oct. 1 onwards, all operators are required to submit monthly reports to the Florida Department of Transportation disclosing the physical presence of any aircraft on public property, including public-use airports, that have equipment that could be used for either 'weather modification' or geoengineering. Airports could lose state funding if they do not comply, Uthmeier warned in the letter.
'Because airports are most likely to catch those who seek to weaponize science in order to push their agenda, your compliance with these reporting obligations is essential to keeping our state safe from these harmful chemicals and experiments,' the Florida attorney general said.
Some states have performed cloud seeding. It is the process of adding small particles, normally silver iodide crystals, to clouds in order to prompt snow or rain, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said earlier this month that she plans to put forward a bill to tackle 'weather modification.'
'I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense,' the Georgia Republican said.
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Miami Herald
16-07-2025
- Miami Herald
Florida AG ties ‘weather modification' to Texas floods. There is no link, experts say
Climate scientists and weather experts are clear: the deadly floods in Texas earlier this month were an entirely natural tragedy, with off-the-charts rainfall levels coming from lingering moisture from a nearby tropical storm feeding off a steamy Gulf of America. That has not stopped unfounded conspiracy theories from spreading, mainly in extremist social media circles. Days after flash floods swept away roads, homes and a Christian girls' summer camp, claiming more than 100 lives, posts flourished attempting to link a common practice called 'cloud seeding' in a nearby county with the devastating floods. Florida's Attorney General James Uthmeier jumped in to amplify the misinformation — citing a newly passed Florida law banning loosely defined 'weather modification' practices that climatologists say have nothing to do with increasingly severe weather events. When Uthmeier posted his letter to all public airports in Florida on X this week, many who responded also aired widely debunked concerns that aircraft contrails — those streaks of condensation left behind jets —are actually 'chemtrails' that are part of some sort of nebulous but nefarious government plot. While no Florida official explicitly linked this law to these theories, it hasn't stopped proponents from championing the new law as a solution to the perceived problem. In his letter, Uthmeier warned airports that they must comply with a new state law designed to halt weather modification activity in the state. The bill, introduced by Miami Republican state senator Ileana Garcia, makes releasing substances designed to change temperature, cloud cover or sunlight levels into the atmosphere punishable with a third-degree felony and fines as high as $100,000. Uthmeier, whose spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, called the new law 'another landmark victory for Florida's health, freedom, and environmental protection.' In the letter, Uthmeier doesn't use the phrase 'chemtrails' but seemed to give a nod to the common concerns held by conspiracy theorists, mentioning spraying chemicals into the air that end up 'polluting our water, contaminating agriculture, and destroying human health.' The majority of Garcia's public comments on the bill have focused on cloud seeding and weather modification, but she said she wanted her legislation to help separate 'fact from fiction' when it comes to this enduring but fringe conspiracy theory. 'Many of us senators receive concerns and complaints on a regular basis regarding these condensation trails, a.k.a. chemtrails to many. There's a lot of skepticism in regards to this, and basically, what I wanted to do with this is try to look for a way to separate fact from fiction,' she said in a hearing for the bill. She also thanked supporters for the 'remarkable response' to her bill in a post on X featuring several pictures of contrails, an email from a constituent complaining that the 'sky was peppered with trails this morning,' alongside a screenshot of a social media post claiming that Garcia's bill would 'ban chemtrails.' She's not the first elected Republican to raise similar concerns, even though the Trump administration has flatly dismissed them. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week released a 'fact check' shooting down the 'chemtrails' claims and explaining that those white plumes behind planes are simply condensation that occurs when hot, humid air from a plane's engine mixes with colder air in the atmosphere. 'Contrails are a normal effect of jet aircraft operations and have been since its earliest days of air travel. If you are seeing a lot of contrails in your area it is because there are a lot of jet aircraft flying overhead,' the EPA wrote. 'The federal government is not aware of there ever being a contrail intentionally formed over the United States for the purpose of geoengineering or weather modification.' A state ban on 'weather modification' Florida's new 'weather modification' law is vague. It does not clearly differentiate between decades-old, somewhat successful practices like 'cloud seeding' — spraying common chemicals like silver iodide to coax more rain or snow from clouds — from theoretical 'geoengineering' concepts scientists have brainstormed to potentially slow some impacts of climate change. Those ideas, many untested and far from reality, have also often been lumped into broader weather-control conspiracies. In a statement celebrating his signature on the bill, Gov. Ron DeSantis specifically mentioned weather modification and geoengineering but does not mention chemtrails. His statement also explained that a public portal for reporting suspected geoengineering or weather modification activity would be opened over the summer. For now, geoengineering is an open scientific question. Experts aren't sure whether or not it will be necessary in the future, or if it could harm the world more than it helps, said James Hurrell, a professor of environmental science and engineering at Colorado State University and an expert on geoengineering. Most importantly, Hurrell said, geoengineering is purely a scientific debate right now. 'There are no geoengineering activities happening in the US. The government is not doing this,' he said. 'No one in the science community is advocating for it at this time. We're simply using models to ask the 'what if questions.' We're trying to understand if this is a scientifically plausible idea or not.' Meanwhile, Florida's bill does nothing to address what climatologists consider the most pressing cause of climate change, which experts say will fuel more weather disasters — the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal. While large-scale geoengineering remains far off, some emerging start-up efforts have been singled out by Republican political leaders. On X, Garcia specifically mentioned a two-man for-profit company called 'Make Sunsets' that has been launching balloons filled with sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere in California and Nevada and selling 'cooling credits' for the sunlight they reflect. The EPA has also targeted this company with regulatory action and social media posts and name-checked them in their recently released fact check on geoengineering. Under Florida's new bill, that activity would not be allowed here. There is no evidence that the company has plans to expand to Florida. Like other recent Florida bills banning offshore wind farms and the sale of lab-grown meat, the bill appears to have been a preemptive strike ahead of any actual activity. Florida's bill would ban another activity that does not appear to take place currently in the state — cloud seeding. For decades, governments have allowed companies to spritz clouds with chemicals like silver iodide to encourage extra snow or rain onto arid fields below, usually at the request of farmers and ranchers. It's common practice in the arid West, including in Texas. That's what triggered the latest social media speculation. Two days before the Texas flash floods, a company called Rainmaker conducted cloud-seeding activities about 100 miles away from Kerr County, where the flooding occurred. The spraying encouraged about half a centimeter of rainfall directly below it, CEO Augustus Doricko told the Washington Post. A few days later, theories began to spread that Rainmaker's activity sparked the floods. Even before Uthmeier waded in, they were echoed by other current and former Republican politicians on X, which Doricko refuted. 'Rainmaker did not operate in the affected area on the 3rd or 4th or contribute to the floods that occurred over the region,' Doricko posted on X. 'Rainmaker will always be fully transparent.' Several news outlets, including the Associated Press, CBS News and Snopes, directly debunked the claim via several expert meteorologists. All said that the extra moisture in the air that led to so much rain came from a nearby tropical storm, Barry, and was not the result of any 'cloud seeding' technology. 'That was something that is orders of magnitude more than anything cloud seeding can do,' Hurrell said. A week later, Uthemeier released his letter to Florida airports. 'I can't help but notice the possibility that weather modification could have played a role in this tragedy,' he wrote, citing a Yahoo News article that actually debunked that theory and featured an expert calling it 'scientifically unfounded.'
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Yahoo
System over Florida has potential to develop into tropical depression, weather service says
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A drenching weather system moving across Florida on Tuesday wasn't even a tropical anything but has the potential to develop into a tropical depression as it moves into the northeastern and northern Gulf later in the week, according to National Weather Service forecasters. The system would be called Tropical Storm Dexter if it became a named storm, but it was expected to be far less lethal than the namesake vigilante serial killer of the Showtime crime drama, 'Dexter' which was set in Florida. The National Weather Service said the area of low pressure off Florida's east coast was becoming better defined and moving west across the Florida Peninsula on Tuesday. The system was drenching the peninsula with heavy rains, and the weather service warned of the potential for flash flooding in parts of the state through the middle of the week. 'Environmental conditions appear generally favorable for additional development, and a tropical depression could form by the middle to latter part of this week as the system moves across the northeastern and north-central Gulf,' the National Weather Service said. How many storms have we had so far? Just six weeks into the start of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, three tropical storms have developed — Andrea, Barry and Chantal. Dexter would be the fourth if it develops that way. Andrea dissipated in the Atlantic after forming at sea last month. Barry dumped rain on eastern Mexico at the end of last month. Chantal made landfall in South Carolina last week, and its remnants caused flooding in North Carolina that killed an 83-year-old woman when her car was swept off a rural road. Floodwaters also forced dozens of people to flee their homes in North Carolina. How many Atlantic storms are predicted this season? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in May forecast 13 to 19 named storms, with six to 10 becoming hurricanes and three to five reaching major status with winds of more than 110 mph (177 kph). A normal season has 14 named storms, seven of which strengthen to hurricanes and three power up further to major hurricanes. Colorado State University researchers last month estimated there would be 17 named storms this year, with nine of them becoming hurricanes. Of the predicted hurricanes, the researchers said four could become major hurricanes. 'Weather modification' reports required in Florida With hurricane season on Floridians' minds, state Attorney General James Uthmeier this week sent a letter to the state's airports telling them that they must report the presence of any aircraft used for the purposes of 'weather modification" starting in October to comply with a new Florida law. After flash floods killed scores of Texas residents over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, social media users spread false claims that the devastation was caused by weather modification. Many pointed to one process in particular, blaming cloud seeding performed on July 2 by a California-based company for the tragedy. But officials say there is no evidence that the floods are the result of cloud seeding and experts agree that cloud seeding would not result in precipitation of this magnitude. Uthmeier said at a news conference on Tuesday that 'this stuff sounds pretty scary to me.' 'My letter was to put airports on notice that they do have obligations and could face penalties, including some criminal penalties, if they don't comply,' Uthmeier said. ___ Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @
Fox News
16-07-2025
- Fox News
Marla Maples wants cleaner skies in America as EPA investigates weather altering
With the recent catastrophic flooding in Texas, concerns have been raised by many about the potential use of weather modification methods, prompting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and members of Congress to investigate and promise transparency on the controversial issue. Marla Maples, co-founder of Global Wellness Forum (GWF) and a MAHA backer based in Palm Beach, told Fox News Digital she's been a longtime advocate of raising awareness about and putting a stop to weather modification. (See the video at the top of this article.) "Weather modification is the human attempt to control the skies — to alter natural weather patterns through aerosol sprays of various particulate matter such as aluminum, strontium, barium and other particulate matters," said Maples. "Cloud seeding uses silver iodide to enhance precipitation and there's also frequency-based technologies used." Maples was among those who helped get Florida Senate Bill 56 passed. It prohibits the release of chemical compounds that affect the temperature, weather, climate or intensity of sunlight. At least 24 states have introduced similar legislation. On July 1, 2025, Florida became the first state to criminalize geoengineering and weather modification when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law. "Just think, when such practices are done without public knowledge or consent, we must ask: Who decides what happens in our shared atmosphere?" said Maples. "While these technologies exist, many are deployed without strict regulations, public oversight or informed consent." Maples believes there should be transparency, safety and public participation in decisions that affect the environment and public health. Heeding Gov. DeSantis' call after he signed SB 56, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote to public-use airports on Monday informing operators of the new law. The law in Florida now "requires all 'public-use airports' to report on geoengineering and weather modification activities." "Injecting our atmosphere with novel chemical compounds to block the sun is a dangerous path, especially in Florida, where sunshine is our most valuable resource," wrote Uthmeier. "Furthermore, as our hearts break for the victims of the flash floods in Texas, I can't help but notice the possibility that weather modification could have played a role in this tragedy." He said the law now "requires all 'public-use airports' to report on geoengineering and weather modification activities." Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently told reporters in relation to the Texas flooding tragedy that "to the best of my knowledge, there is zero evidence of anything related to anything like weather modification." EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced two new online resources designed to address public questions and concerns about contrails and geoengineering. "I tasked my team to compile everything we know about contrails and geoengineering to release to you now publicly," wrote Zeldin in an X post. "I want you to know EVERYTHING I know about these topics, and without ANY exception." Contrails are condensation trails formed from planes, while geoengineering is an effort to deliberately alter the Earth's climate, such as through cloud seeding. "I tasked my team to compile everything we know about contrails and geoengineering to release to you now publicly." Many believe some contrails have chemicals and/or other substances that alter the environment for weather modification purposes – which the EPA hopes to investigate in the push for transparency. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., recently shared her proposal for a bill to prohibit "the injection, release or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate or sunlight intensity." Rainmaker Tech Corporation CEO Augustus Doricko, in a recent appearance on "The Will Cain Show," shared how his company adds 50 grams of silver iodide per operation, touching on public concerns. "I have yet to see any sufficient evidence of a malevolent conspiracy of someone releasing toxins into the atmosphere in those long streaky tracks in the upper atmosphere," said Doricko. "A lot of what I've seen seems to suggest those are condensation trails formed by airplanes," he said. "Now, regardless of whether those are condensation trails or chemtrails — and I am entirely open to people presenting evidence of them being chemtrails of some kind, despite not believing them to be that now — if you see a long streak in the sky that has nothing to do with cloud, which relies on existing big puffy natural clouds raining a little bit more," he added. "These aren't the skies that I grew up with in my small hometown in Georgia, when the clouds were big and puffy and the skies were bright blue." Said Maples, "These aren't the skies that I grew up with in my small hometown in Georgia, when the clouds were big and puffy and the skies were bright blue. For years, I've been observing high-altitude airplanes creating streaks of white across the sky that linger all day, spread out like fine feathers and white out the beautiful sun." The former wife of President Donald Trump and mother of Tiffany Trump said she believes side effects such as chronic diseases, threats to agriculture and lack of exposure to Vitamin D are all linked to geoengineering. "When I see a lot of spraying in the sky, my mind is a little more foggy. My energy field is much lower. It's harder for me to focus," Maples told Fox News Digital. Maples asked Americans to "observe how they feel after being outside seeking fresh air, and yet see a sky filled with these lingering streams." "Do you notice a dizzy feeling? Is your mind not as clear? Are you observing a lack of energy or unusual headaches, a sore throat, allergy symptoms?" She suggested these are all questions people should be asking. In a post on X, HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared his support for states' efforts to ban geoengineering. "Twenty-four states move to ban geoengineering [of] our climate by dousing our citizens, our waterways and landscapes with toxins," he wrote. "This is a movement every MAHA [advocate] needs to support. HHS will do its part." In a study by the University of Washington in 2021, researchers identified a link between air pollution and dementias. Experts, including those from Harvard University, have previously confirmed that aerosol injection technologies are not in use and are theoretical — saying they would be highly visible. A Harvard University professor specializing in solar geoengineering said, according to a research site, "There is no evidence for the existence of chemtrails." "If such a program existed at the scale required to explain the claimed amount of chemtrails, it would require thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of people," the site noted. "It would be extraordinarily hard to keep such a program secret because it would be so easy for a single individual in the program to reveal it using leaked documents, photographs or actual hardware," it continued.
