Florida’s attorney general is asking airports in the state to watch out for signs of weather modification.
In a letter, Attorney General James Uthmeier asks the operators of all of Florida’s public-use airports to comply with the state’s new law that makes cloud seeding and any geoengineering illegal.
“Because airports are more likely to catch those who seek to weaponize science in order to push their agenda, your compliance with these reporting obligations is essential to keeping our state safe from these harmful chemicals and experiments,” Uthmeier wrote.
Starting on Oct. 1, all public-use airports must submit monthly reports to the Florida Department of Transportation that includes information about any aircraft equipped with devices that could be used to disperse “air contaminants” into the atmosphere.
James Uthmeier gives brief remarks after being sworn in as the Florida Attorney General on Monday, Feb. 17, 2025.
A new law OK’d by Gov. Ron DeSantis (SB 56) outlaws geoengineering and weather modification, including a process called cloud seeding.
Cloud seeding is 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.
In his letter, Uthmeier brings up cloud seeding and suggests it could be a “possibility” that the weather modification process “played a role” in the Kerr County, Texas, flooding disaster.
But claims that a cloud seeding event two days prior to the floods caused the disaster are false, meteorologists say.
Contrails streaked across the Treasure Coast sky Monday morning, March 24, 2025, in Vero Beach, Florida.
What is geoengineering?
Florida’s elected officials this session backed legislation that plays into a decades-old conspiracy theory that the government is spreading chemicals in the air, in some cases to control people’s minds.
As previously reported, some believe cloud seeding, contrails and “chemtrails” all are intertwined. (The term contrail is a portmanteau of “condensation” and “trail”; chemtrail is “chemical” and “trail.”)
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.
Some, however, believe these are “chemtrails,” or evidence of the government researching solar radiation modification, a theoretical practice which would modify the atmosphere to shade Earth’s surface by reflecting sunlight back into space.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has debunked the “chemtrail” conspiracy and other myths, such as the government having the possibility to modify hurricanes.
“No technology exists that can create, destroy, modify, strengthen or steer hurricanes in any way, shape or form,” NOAA says.
Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida’s attorney general asks airports to watch out for ‘chemtrails’