Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claims the current government shutdown has halted “taxpayer-funded climate modification experiments” that U.S. government agencies say they were not involved in yet.
“One good thing that can come from this government shutdown…CLEAR SKIES!” the Georgia Republican wrote in X on Friday. “No more taxpayer-funded climate modification experiments Americans never asked for. My Clear Skies Act WILL BAN geoengineering and climate modification. No more chemical spraying in our skies. It’s time to end this dangerous, unregulated practice!!”
U.S. agencies have consistently said they do not engage in large-scale, non-laboratory weather modification experiments, even as such research has become a fixation for conspiracy theorists, who believe weather modification has caused natural disasters and spread in the exhaust trails of passing planes.
the independent has contacted Greene’s office for more information about the basis for her claims, including any specific ongoing experiments that could signal she had stopped.
“The U.S. government is not engaged in any type of open-air testing (for example, small-scale experiments designed to study injection technologies) or large-scale deployment” of technologies to modify the amount of solar radiation that reaches Earth, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Current federal research is designed to improve the ability to observe current conditions in the atmosphere and understanding of the potential physical impacts of solar geoengineering,” according to the agency.
“NOAA does not fund or participate in cloud seeding or other climate 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 monitor 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.
Both the EPA and NOAA have said over the past year that they are not involved in non-laboratory experiments to change the climate (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
Cloud seeding has been practiced in the U.S. since the mid-20th century, although 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 snow cover and lessen the impacts of drought.
Greene, who was once famous for the conspiracy theory that a space laser controlled by a prominent Jewish family sparked wildfires in California, has been an outspoken critic of weather modification.
In July he introduced a bill to ban the practice.
Greene introduced legislation to ban weather modification in July (Real America’s Voice)
Despite the paucity of evidence that the government is involved in such research, or that large-scale climate 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 have not occurred or could not physically occur with current technologies, climate scientist Daniel Swain of the University of California told the outlet.
“That’s a pretty shocking memo,” he said. “There’s no more tinfoil hat. They really think they’re spraying toxins.”