28-01-2025
Warning: Indiana lawmakers want to make weather control illegal
Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation in the House and Senate that would make efforts to control the weather in Indiana illegal.
House Bill 1335 and Senate Bill 364 both prohibit anyone from 'discharging a chemical or apparatus in the atmosphere' that would affect sunlight, temperature or weather.
Both bills have been assigned to committees, but neither has received a hearing and none are on the schedules for this week.
Sen. Scott Alexander, R-Muncie, filed the Senate bill. He said he received letters from Hoosiers in his district about the issue and decided to bring the legislation forward to prompt conversations around weather modification.
'They're concerned about the atmosphere and whether or not this is real or fake, I guess,' Alexander told IndyStar. 'So … for consideration purposes, I was kind of on the fence, and I decided to go ahead and file it and see what good communication brings.'
Rep. Lorissa Sweet, R-Somerset, wrote the House bill. She did not respond to IndyStar's requests for comment.
Both bills attempt to make weather modification a misdemeanor offense with maximum penalties of up to one year in jail and up to $5,000 in fines.
Alexander said his constituents were worried that pollutants are being put into the air and may be dangerous to their health.
'I dug in trying to find out some information and just really didn't find a lot,' Alexander said. 'There's plenty of stuff on the internet about it, but I think credible information is what I was looking and asking for.'
Geoengineering — a term used to describe attempts to cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space using particles or cloud cover — is the spring board for similar legislation across the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration since 2020 has researched the potential for this kind of technology but has not implemented any programming other than observational and modeling projects, although small groups of independent researchers have conducted their own experiments.
Alexander said his bill is modeled after a 2024 Tennessee law banning geoengineering in the state.
Tennessee lawmakers brought their bill forward following a 2023 White House report suggesting the U.S. identify potential research areas around the topic.
As Tennessee state lawmakers discussed the bill, Sen. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, said too many people don't look up toward the sky and see geoengineering.
'If you look up one day it's clear, the next day it looks like the angels have been playing tic-tac-toe,' Niceley said. 'I've got pictures on my phone of Xs over my house.'
Niceley said the only problem with the Tennessee bill was there weren't penalties for pilots caught dumping chemicals into the atmosphere.
Florida's state senate currently is considering a similar bill that would prohibit actions 'intended to affect the temperature, the weather, or the intensity of sunlight within the atmosphere of this state.'
Arizona is considering a prohibition on geoengineering, and offenders could face a class 4 felony with civil penalties of no less than $500,000 per violation. The Arizona bill defines geoengineering as anything related to weather modification, aerosol injection, cloud seeding and solar radiation modification.
Karl Schneider is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach him at Follow him on BlueSky @
IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana bills banning weather control appear stuck on the ground
