US Politics
MTG names her one positive to come from the shutdown: the end to ‘taxpayer-funded weather modification’ that isn’t really happening
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claims the ongoing government shutdown has halted “taxpayer-funded weather modification experiments” that U.S. government agencies say they weren’t already involved in.
“One good thing to come from this government shutdown… CLEAR SKIES!” the Georgia Republican wrote on X on Friday. “No taxpayer-funded weather modification experiments Americans never asked for. My Clear Skies Act will BAN geoengineering and weather modification. No more spraying chemicals in our skies. It’s time to end this dangerous and unregulated practice!!”
U.S. agencies have consistently said they are not involved in large-scale, non-laboratory weather modification experiments, even as such research has become a fixation of conspiracy theorists, who believe weather modification has caused natural disasters and been spread by the exhaust trails of passing airplanes.
The Independent has contacted Greene’s office for more information regarding the basis of her claims, including any specific ongoing experiments she could point to that had been halted.
“The U.S. government is not engaged in any form of outdoor testing (e.g., small-scale experiments designed to study injection technologies) or large-scale deployment” of technologies to modify the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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“Current federal research is designed to improve the ability to observe current conditions in the atmosphere and the understanding of the potential physical impacts of solar geoengineering,” according to the agency.
“NOAA does not fund or participate in cloud seeding or other weather modification projects,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency wrote late last year on its website.
“NOAA does not modify the weather, nor does it fund, participate in or oversee cloud seeding or any other weather modification activities,” the agency added.
Commercial flights, long thought by conspiracy theorists to spread “chemtrails,” also remain operational during the government shutdown, appearing to cast further doubt on the basis of Greene’s claims.
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Cloud seeding has been practiced in the U.S. since the mid-1900s, though it is primarily funded at the state level or below, according to a 2024 report from the Government Accountability Office. As of last July, cloud seeding programs were active in at least nine, mostly arid Western states, where such efforts have been used to increase snowpack and lessen drought impacts.
Greene, who once famously indulged a conspiracy theory that a space laser controlled by a prominent Jewish family caused wildfires in California, has been an outspoken critic of weather modification.
In July, she introduced a bill to ban the practice.
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Despite the paucity of evidence that the government is involved in such research, or that large-scale weather modification beyond cloud seeding is even possible, the Trump administration is reportedly preparing a Department of Health and Human Services task force to investigate climate and weather control, according to an agency memo obtained by KFF Health News.
The memo describes a series of conspiracies about events that either haven’t or could not physically occur with present technologies, climate scientist Daniel Swain of the University of California told the outlet.
“That is a pretty shocking memo,” he said. “It doesn’t get more tinfoil hat. They really believe toxins are being sprayed.”
