Sponsors (5)
The bill increases federal deterrence, transparency, and state control to prevent potentially harmful weather-modification, but does so at the cost of criminalizing or chilling legitimate research, creating legal uncertainty and compliance costs, and reducing federal capacity for research and emergency responses.
Residents in urban and rural communities are protected from federally authorized or unregulated weather-modification interventions that could alter local precipitation, air or water quality.
Federal enforcement mechanisms (criminal penalties, EPA/FAA civil penalties and corporate liability) create stronger deterrence against interstate or harmful weather-modification activities.
Public reporting, publication of carrier reports, and interagency coordination increase transparency and give the public and regulators clearer paths to report and investigate suspected weather-modification activity.
Scientists, researchers and some entities could face criminal penalties or loss of authorization for benign or experimental weather-science work, chilling research and academic inquiry.
Broad statutory definitions and expanded federal jurisdiction risk sweeping in benign activities (e.g., cloud seeding, certain aviation operations), creating legal uncertainty and chilling legitimate uses.
Prohibiting federal research, funding, or authorization of many weather-modification studies will reduce scientific capacity and delay development of storm-mitigation technologies and informed policymaking.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits most weather modification in U.S. airspace, repeals federal authorization, bans federally funded research, and creates reporting, investigation, and penalties.
Official title: To prohibit weather modification within the United States, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 9, 2026 by W. Greg Steube · Last progress February 9, 2026
Makes most forms of intentional weather modification and large-scale atmospheric intervention illegal in the United States and its territories, creates criminal and civil penalties for violations, requires reporting systems and investigations, and repeals any existing federal statutory, regulatory, or executive authority that authorizes weather modification. Federal departments, agencies, and any recipients of federal funds are barred from authorizing, conducting, or funding weather-modification research, testing, or experimentation. Establishes definitions (including geoengineering, cloud seeding, stratospheric aerosol injection), directs the FAA and EPA to set up public reporting portals for aircraft and suspected violations, requires interagency coordination for investigations, and makes each release, injection, emission, or dispersal a separate offense; the law takes effect 90 days after enactment.