Weather modification bill passes Florida Senate

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A bill to ban weather modification projects passed the Florida Senate Thursday.

Among other things, the bill seeks to prevent what some call chemtrails.

Senate Bill 56 would ban the release of chemicals into the air meant to affect the climate. 

With this bill, anybody who violates this ban would face steep fines and a felony charge

Republican Senator Ileana Garcia sponsored the bill. 

“Interestingly enough, we got to this point because of complaints that received from pilots that gave us testimony of irregular activities they have seen, but there was really nowhere to report it to,” Garcia said.

She addressed potential concerns of those against the bill.

“The bill doesn’t ban legitimate climate research, it bans unregulated weather modification and geoengineering experiments that lack transparency and oversight. The ones that lead to conspiracy theories, unfortunately,” Garcia said.

The bill faced little debate and pushback on the Senate Floor, except from Democratic Senator Tina Polsky.  

Polsky: What I don’t understand is if somebody reports seeing, let’s just say, for example, a chemtrail, or something that they believe is a problem. By nature of what it is, it dissipates into the atmosphere. So how would DEP investigate if there was a violation of this law?

Garcia: I think it’s not just based on one complaint or one report. I think it would be based on various.

In an X video, Governor Ron DeSantis also spoke out in support of the bill. But the governor spoke out against the House version, saying they “gutted the bill”.

The bill passed 28 to 9 in the Senate.