Latest news with #Uthmeier
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Florida attorney general fans weather conspiracies, at our risk and for his benefit
Trafficking in conspiracy theories can be dangerous for politicians. Just look at what's happening with the Jeffrey Epstein files. President Donald Trump spent years stoking dark narratives in which he was the only person who could destroy the 'deep state,' and now his followers are refusing to accept his word and the word of Attorney General Pam Bondi that there's 'nothing to see here' on the Epstein case. The political blowback, much of it from MAGA, is only intensifying. We don't seem to have learned that lesson in Florida, though, at least judging by the actions of Attorney General James Uthmeier. Uthmeier, who first seized his moment in the political sun by gleefully leading the charge on the Alligator Alcatraz, is now going one better: He's using his office to amplify climate misinformation. He sent out an official warning to the state's airports telling them they'd better comply with a new Florida law that's supposed to halt 'weather modification' activity. In a letter on state of Florida letterhead that he posted on X this week, the attorney general — the top lawyer in the whole state — said that, starting Oct. 1, all public-use airports have to send monthly reports to the Florida Department of Transportation to notify the government of any aircraft equipped with devices that could disperse 'air contaminants.' In the letter, he's even suggesting that 'weather modification' or 'cloud seeding' could have played a role in the terrible Texas floods that took the lives of at least 134 people. Our community felt that pain, too. Among those lost to the floods were twin 8-year-old granddaughters of David Lawrence Jr. , a former Miami Herald publisher and longtime advocate for early childhood education. The wife and daughter of William G. Hardin III, dean of the College of Business at Florida International University, were also among the missing. Climatologists say practices like cloud seeding — a decades-old, somewhat successful method of wringing more rain or snow from clouds — have nothing to do with increasingly severe weather events. And yet Uthmeier and Gov. Ron DeSantis have played into the fears of those who see manipulating the weather as a potential tool for the military or others to weaponize for nefarious reasons. Sadly, unfounded conspiracy theories have been spreading on social media ever since the July 4 flash floods in Texas swept away roads, homes and a Christian girls' summer camp. Some posts attempted to link the floods to 'cloud seeding' in a nearby county. Other conspiracy theorists jumped into the discussion focusing on 'geoengineering' or widely debunked claims that the condensation streaks left behind by jets, called contrails, are actually 'chemtrails' that spread chemicals and are part of some sort of murky government plot. Even the Trump administration has dismissed the 'chemtrails' claims, with the Environmental Protection Agency releasing a 'fact check' last week that said, in part: '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.' So it doesn't help that Uthmeier wrote in his letter to the airports a week after the floods, while the number of dead was growing: 'I can't help but notice the possibility that weather modification could have played a role in this tragedy. Developing reports show that a weather modification company conducted 'cloud seeding' operations just days before the deadly flood. Florida's new law seeks to prevent something like that from ever happening.' It's human nature to want to blame somebody or something for a tragedy like the Texas floods. But meteorologists have said that the rain came from a nearby tropical storm, Barry. Florida's new law — introduced by Miami Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia — makes it a third-degree felony to release substances to change temperature, cloud cover or sunlight levels. It does nothing to address the serious issue of burning fossil fuels, the more likely fuel for weather disasters. By fanning the flames of conspiracy theories, Uthmeier, who has only been in office since February, is using them to his political advantage. Too bad Florida's leaders aren't more concerned with stopping destructive conspiracy theories than fomenting them. Click here to send the letter.
NBC News
3 days ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Florida attorney general reports wrongful charges under halted immigration law
ORLANDO, Fla. — At least two people have been wrongly charged under a Florida law that outlaws people living in the U.S. illegally from entering the state since a federal judge halted its enforcement, according to a report Florida's attorney general is required to file as punishment for defying the judge's ruling. Both men were arrested in late May by deputies in northeast Florida's St. Johns County, more than a month after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami issued an order freezing the enforcement of the state statute. The law makes it a misdemeanor for people who are in the U.S. without legal permission to enter Florida by eluding immigration officials. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in his report filed at the beginning of July that he only became aware of the two cases at the end of June after requesting information from state and local law enforcement. As punishment for flouting her order and being found in contempt, the judge requires Uthmeier to file bimonthly reports about whether any arrests, detentions or law enforcement actions have been made under the law. On May 29, St. Johns County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested a man with an active immigration detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another man on counts of illegal entry and driving without a valid driver's license, according to the status report. As corrective action, the charge involving the man with the ICE detainer was dismissed in state court, and prosecutors filed a motion that was granted to vacate the charge for illegal entry in the second case, R.J. Larizza, state attorney for the jurisdiction that covers St. Johns County, said in a separate filing. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation into law in February as part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. Immigrants rights groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of two unnamed, Florida-based immigrants living in the U.S. illegally shortly after the bill was signed into law. The lawsuit said the new legislation violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by encroaching on federal duties. Williams issued a temporary restraining order and injunction that barred the enforcement of the new law statewide in April. The attorney general's office then unsuccessfully petitioned the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to override that decision. Uthmeier has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. After Williams issued her original order, Uthmeier sent a memo to state and local law enforcement officers telling them to refrain from enforcing the law, even though he disagreed with the injunction. But five days later, he sent a memo saying the judge was legally wrong and that he couldn't prevent police officers and deputies from enforcing the law. The judge last month found Uthmeier to be in civil contempt of her ruling. Besides championing the new law, Florida officials have helped Trump's immigration crackdown with the construction of a new immigration detention center named "Alligator Alcatraz" at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades. DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday that a request has been developed for proposals for a second migrant detention facility at Camp Blanding in northeast Florida but no work has begun. Alligator Alcatraz has "grown quickly" but is not yet at the 3,000 to 4,000 detainees originally envisioned, DeSantis said in Tampa. "I'm willing to do Blanding once Alligator Alcatraz is filled," the governor said. "Once there's a demand, then we would be able to go for Camp Blanding."
Miami Herald
3 days ago
- Climate
- 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
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida attorney general identifies wrongful charges under halted immigration law
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — At least two people have been wrongly charged under a Florida law that outlaws people living in the U.S. illegally from entering the state since a federal judge halted its enforcement, according to a report Florida's attorney general is required to file as punishment for defying the judge's ruling. Both men were arrested in late May by deputies in northeast Florida's St. Johns County, more than a month after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami issued an order freezing the enforcement of the state statute. The law makes it a misdemeanor for people who are in the U.S. without legal permission to enter Florida by eluding immigration officials. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in his report filed at the beginning of July that he only became aware of the two cases at the end of June after requesting information from state and local law enforcement. As punishment for flouting her order and being found in contempt, the judge requires Uthmeier to file bimonthly reports about whether any arrests, detentions or law enforcement actions have been made under the law. On May 29, St. Johns County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested a man with an active immigration detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another man on counts of illegal entry and driving without a valid driver's license, according to the status report. As corrective action, the charge involving the man with the ICE detainer was dismissed in state court, and prosecutors filed a motion that was granted to vacate the charge for illegal entry in the second case, R.J. Larizza, state attorney for the jurisdiction that covers St. Johns County, said in a separate filing. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation into law in February as part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. Immigrants rights groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of two unnamed, Florida-based immigrants living in the U.S. illegally shortly after the bill was signed into law. The lawsuit said the new legislation violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by encroaching on federal duties. Williams issued a temporary restraining order and injunction that barred the enforcement of the new law statewide in April. The attorney general's office then unsuccessfully petitioned the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to override that decision. Uthmeier has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. After Williams issued her original order, Uthmeier sent a memo to state and local law enforcement officers telling them to refrain from enforcing the law, even though he disagreed with the injunction. But five days later, he sent a memo saying the judge was legally wrong and that he couldn't prevent police officers and deputies from enforcing the law. The judge last month found Uthmeier to be in civil contempt of her ruling. Besides championing the new law, Florida officials have helped Trump's immigration crackdown with the construction of a new immigration detention center named 'Alligator Alcatraz' at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades. DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday that a request has been developed for proposals for a second migrant detention facility at Camp Blanding in northeast Florida but no work has begun. Alligator Alcatraz has 'grown quickly' but is not yet at the 3,000 to 4,000 detainees originally envisioned, DeSantis said in Tampa. 'I'm willing to do Blanding once Alligator Alcatraz is filled,' the governor said. 'Once there's a demand, then we would be able to go for Camp Blanding.' ___ Associated Press journalist Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @ Solve the daily Crossword
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Florida attorney general identifies wrongful charges under halted immigration law
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — At least two people have been wrongly charged under a Florida law that outlaws people living in the U.S. illegally from entering the state since a federal judge halted its enforcement, according to a report Florida's attorney general is required to file as punishment for defying the judge's ruling. Both men were arrested in late May by deputies in northeast Florida's St. Johns County, more than a month after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami issued an order freezing the enforcement of the state statute. The law makes it a misdemeanor for undocumented migrants to enter Florida by eluding immigration officials. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in his report filed at the beginning of July that he only became aware of the two cases at the end of June after requesting information from state and local law enforcement. As punishment for flouting her order and being found in contempt, the judge requires Uthmeier to file bimonthly reports about whether any arrests, detentions or law enforcement actions have been made under the law. On May 29, St. Johns County Sheriff's Office deputies arrested a man with an active immigration detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and another man on counts of illegal entry and driving without a valid driver's license, according to the status report. As corrective action, the charge involving the man with the ICE detainer was dismissed in state court, and prosecutors filed a motion that was granted to vacate the charge for illegal entry in the second case, R.J. Larizza, state attorney for the jurisdiction that covers St. Johns County, said in a separate filing. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation into law in February as part of President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. Immigrants rights groups filed a lawsuit on behalf of two unnamed, Florida-based immigrants living in the U.S. illegally shortly after the bill was signed into law. The lawsuit said the new legislation violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by encroaching on federal duties. Williams issued a temporary restraining order and injunction that barred the enforcement of the new law statewide in April. The attorney general's office then unsuccessfully petitioned the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to override that decision. Uthmeier has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. After Williams issued her original order, Uthmeier sent a memo to state and local law enforcement officers telling them to refrain from enforcing the law, even though he disagreed with the injunction. But five days later, he sent a memo saying the judge was legally wrong and that he couldn't prevent police officers and deputies from enforcing the law. The judge last month found Uthmeier to be in civil contempt of her ruling.
