GOP-led DOGE panel warns of risks of weather manipulation

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sounded the alarm Tuesday on weather-tampering efforts aimed at counteracting climate change and promoting rainfall, warning the left wants to take away Americans’ “God-given rights over the Earth in order to satisfy their godless climate cult beliefs.”

“No one wants to be a lab rat,” she said.

Chairing a DOGE subcommittee hearing called “Playing God with the Weather – a Disastrous Forecast,” Ms. Greene said concerns over attempts to change the climate — including solar geo-engineering that seeks to cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight and cloud-seeding to increase rainfall — reach far beyond the conspiratorial corners of the Internet.

“What this whole debate comes down to is, who controls the skies?” said Mr. Greene, Georgia Republican. “Do we believe in God and that he has dominion over his perfect creation of planet Earth?”

“Do we believe that he has given us everything we need to survive as a civilization since the beginning of time?” she said. “Or do you believe in man’s claim of authority over the weather, based on scientists that have only been alive for decades and weren’t here to witness the climate changes since the beginning of time?”

Democrats accused Republicans of exaggerating their concerns, and said more research needed to be done.

They also criticized President Trump and Republicans for pulling out of international climate-change negotiations and slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The purpose of the EPA, literally, this is why the EPA exists, is to regulate, study and understand how modifications to the environment impact human health and the environment,” said New Mexico Rep. Melanie Stansbury, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee.

For years, the furor over weather manipulation efforts was chalked up mainly to conspiracy theorists who pointed to airplane “chemtrails” and other phenomena as proof the government or shady groups were releasing dangerous chemicals for nefarious reasons, including to manipulate the weather, the population, and even people’s minds.

The subject area largely flew under the radar before Mr. Trump and Republicans took back control of Washington.

EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin this year said it was time to address Americans’ urgent and vital questions about geo-engineering and condensation trails.

“For years, people who asked questions in good faith were dismissed, even vilified by the media and their own government,” he said. “That era is over.”

The subcommittee heard testimony from Roger Pielke Jr., a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Christopher Martz, a meteorologist and policy analyst at Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow; and Michael MacCracken, chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs with the Climate Institute.

Mr. Pielke said more research needs to be done on the subject.

“We can’t have Republican science and Democratic science,” he said. “We have to have science that’s trusted by everyone to assess what weather modification has been done, what have been the effects?”

“If we don’t know what the effects are, what research can we do to know those effects?” he said. “And if we can’t know the effects, maybe that would structure how we think about going forward with that technology.”

The panelists said they do not believe cloud-seeding played a role in the recent flooding in Texas that killed more than 130 people. They said the federal government’s investment in the subject tailed off in the 1980s, and nine states actually facilitate cloud-seeding programs, but have strict regulations.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a bill earlier this year banning geo-engineering and weather modification activities in the state. Tennessee also bans it.

Ms. Greene has introduced the Clear Skies Act this year, which would shut down weather modification efforts.