Photo from Florida Sky Watchers Facebook page
A bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers has advanced a bill to ban weather-modification projects identified by some conspiracy theorists as “chemtrails.”
The measure (SB 56), sponsored by Miami Republican Ileana Garcia, would prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of any means of a chemical, chemical compound, substance, or apparatus into the atmosphere for the purpose of affecting the climate.
“Many of us senators receive concerns, complaints, on a regular basis regarding these condensation trails, a/k/a chemtrails to many,” Garcia said Tuesday in introducing the measure to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government.
“There is a lot of skepticism in regard to this and, basically, what I wanted to do with this is try to separate fact from fiction and to start to create a methodology where people feel comfortable by confirming what it is that they’re seeing, creating a system to log, track, investigate if necessary.”
The proposal says that anyone who observes such a geoengineering or weather modification activity may report it to the Department of Environmental Protection via a phone call, email, or old-fashioned mail. That agency in turn may refer such reports to either the Department of Health or the Division of Emergency Management when appropriate.
A statute already on the books bans individuals from attempting to affect the weather without a license from the state. Garcia’s measure would make the offense a second-degree misdemeanor with a penalty up to $100,000.
Similar proposals have been heard in other state legislatures this year, including in Arizona and Utah. Tennessee passed such a measure last year.
“Chemtrails” are actually “contrails” — short for condensation trails formed when hot jet exhaust containing water vapor hits supercold air at high altitudes and turns into ice.
The Florida bill passed committee on Tuesday on a 10-2 vote, with the two dissenting votes from Democrats Lori Berman of South Florida and Central Florida’s Kristen Arrington.
The third Democrat on the committee, South Florida’s Jason Pizzo, said he went into the meeting intending to make fun of the sponsor but was persuaded to support the measure in part because of the testimony of Bradford L. Thomas, who recently resigned after serving for 20 years as a judge on the Florida First District Court of Appeal and previously was public safety policy coordinator for former Gov. Jeb Bush. He said that Garcia should increase the penalties for those found guilty of violating the proposal as a felony.
Dimming the sun?
“This is not about cloud seeding. It is not about helping farmers. This is about prohibiting the injection of aerosols into the atmosphere … for reflecting sunlight back into space. It is essentially an attempt to reduce what some consider to be man-made global warming.”
“It’s an attempt to dim the sun. It’s an attempt at sun dimming,” Thomas said, adding that he believed that was a theory espoused by Bill Gates.
Gates has indeed invested in a such a venture.
Sen. Pizzo asked, if the judge’s thesis was accurate, who was spending the money to do this and to what end?
Thomas said it is federal taxpayers funding the effort to the tune of “approximately $6.5 billion,” and said he assumed people are being paid by federal funds to make such flights. He did not provide more information to back up his assertions.
Speaking out to oppose the measure as drafted was Augustus Doricko, founder of Rainmaker Technology Corp., a cloud seeding geoengineering startup that aims to create water abundance in the United States.
Doricko said he didn’t oppose the “spirit” of the bill but only the current configuration, which he said would impede the mission of ending water scarcity.
Garcia’s bill has one more committee stop in the Senate.
The House companion (HB 477) filed by Pasco County Republican Kevin Steele has yet to be heard by any committee in that chamber.
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