‘Chemtrails,’ cloud seeding would be banned under bill passed by Florida Senate
- The Florida Senate passed a bill that would make it illegal to release chemicals or substances into the atmosphere to manipulate weather, a practice known as geoengineering.
- The bill’s sponsor, Senator Ileana Garcia, claims it aims to address public concerns about aerial spraying despite no evidence of harmful activity.
- The bill would establish a hotline for residents to report suspicious aerial activity and impose felony charges for violations.
A bill endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis that would, among other things, outlaw “chemtrails” in Florida has passed in the state’s Senate.
“I have a problem with people spraying perfume around me sometimes, don’t you have a problem with people spraying things into the atmosphere that really have no type of empirical data, that you just don’t know who they are or what they’re doing?” said Sen. Ileana Garcia, R-Coral Gables, the bill’s sponsor, on Thursday morning.
“Geoengineering and Weather Modification Activities” (SB 56), prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of a chemical, a chemical compound, a substance or an apparatus into the atmosphere in Florida to affect the temperature, weather, climate or intensity of sunlight. It was OK’d 28–9.
As previously reported, Garcia’s bill has been the subject of controversy. Specifically, it would prohibit cloud seeding, the process of releasing tiny particles into the air to increase precipitation, a practice used in arid parts of the Southwestern United States like Utah to increase the water supply. Similar bills have been filed in eight other states, according to the bill analyses.
But some believe cloud seeding, contrails and the conspiracy theory of “chemtrails” are all intertwined. (The term contrail is a portmanteau of “condensation” and “trail”; chemtrail is “chemical” and “trail.”)
Both DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier have expressed support for the legislation on social media, with Uthmeier saying his “office will also be looking at other legal avenues in this area to protect Floridians from the left’s climate agenda.”
DeSantis, however, made clear he supports only Garcia’s version, criticizing the language of the House bill. “We don’t want to indulge this nonsense in Florida, where we are proud of our sunshine,” he posted.
Contrails are the line-shaped clouds visible behind aircraft engines under certain atmospheric conditions. They happen when hot, humid air from the engines condenses into ice crystals in the cold air, the National Weather Service says.
While they often fade quickly, especially in dry weather, their appearance and durability can change depending on the conditions the plane flew through, including altitude, temperature, humidity, sunlight, wind speed, and so forth.
Contrails have nothing to do with weather modification activities.
Garcia has said conspiracy theories about weather modification were not behind her filing of the bill. “The bill was drafted to address concerns and raise awareness surrounding these issues. On the contrary, let’s debunk them,” she wrote in a post on X in December.
On Thursday in floor debate, however, Garcia said, while discussing the disinformation that has tagged along with this bill: “There are condensation trails, and then there are chemtrails that have yet to be established and understood.”
She also reassured senators who were wary of the bill that it would not ban legitimate climate research, only “unregulated weather modification and geoengineering experiments that lack transparency and oversight.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and state weather agencies will continue their work in climate monitoring and forecasting without interruption. She argued that the bill would close a “loophole” and start a conversation so that it can be addressed at the federal level.
“It’s up to the feds to step in and begin to look at a lot of these military contracts that are currently being used, and that a lot of the pilots and a lot of constituents from several areas of Florida have honed in on, called in and complained,” Garcia said.
The bill would also establish a hotline with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection so residents concerned with streaks in the sky can call and report them.
The bill, if signed into law, would allow the state to charge a person with a third-degree felony if found participating in weather modification activities, punishable by a term of imprisonment no longer than five years and and a $100,000 fine.
“This is about protecting Florida’s environment and public health,” Garcia said. “With no federal guidelines in place, Florida must take responsibility for its own airspace.”
Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com.
