Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is formally closing the door on geoengineering and weather modification in Florida amid increased worries about “chemtrails,” signing legislation which repeals the state’s ability to issue permits for such actions.
DeSantis spoke about Senate Bill 56 on Tuesday prior to signing the measure, introduced by Republican State Sen. Ileana Garcia.
“It protects Floridians from geoengineering and weather modification activities,” DeSantis said during the press conference, recognizing that this has been a concern for people across his state.
“Now people have been coming up to me. We don’t do that in any of our state agencies. There’s never been any permit issued from the entire modern history of Florida. We’re not engaged in any of that, but people have concerns about it, because you have all these people that are saying, well, the way to fight climate change is to inject this stuff and block the sun and do all that,” DeSantis said.
“And I’m just like, no, okay, no, we’re not doing that in Florida. We’re the Sunshine State, you know, we don’t need any of this now,” he said, although he said this kind of activity has not been done by the state itself.
“So it wasn’t being done by the state of Florida, I can tell you that. But this is something that you hear out there. It’s kind of like a little cottage industry where people think that they can, you know, solve global warming by just putting stuff into the atmosphere,” he said, adding that Garcia’s bill “really slams the door on that.”
“Any of those efforts are dead on arrival in the state of Florida, so you don’t have to worry about that going forward. And I know there was, you know, some back and forth on this bill. I know there was an attempt by the House leadership to water it down … but I can say that this strong bill ended up passing and prevailing,” the governor continued.
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A summary from DeSantis’s office adds that the measure “also prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity.”
Violators could face “third-degree felony charges, up to five years in prison, and fines up to $100,000.” Under the bill, by October 1, 2025, all publicly owned airports will have to “report the presence of any aircraft equipped with weather modification or geoengineering equipment to the Florida Department of Transportation.”
“Through this bill we are addressing modern environmental concerns brought forward by our constituents and eliminating any ambiguity regarding the legality of weather modification,” Garcia said in a statement following the measure passing in the Senate in early April.
“Currently there is no system in place to track reports and concerns our residents have regarding geoengineering and weather modification. The bill creates a system to log, track, investigate and mitigate if necessary, so residents can separate fact from fiction and have a better understanding of what is happening in their communities,” she added.
DeSantis also signed legislation banning localities from unilaterally adding fluoride to the public water supply, adding to the broader Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda.
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