Following hours of debate, a committee of lawmakers in Wyoming voted in favor of drafting two bills, one of which would place a ten-year moratorium on cloud seeding and another which would ban geoengineering in the state, Cowboy State Daily reported.
Prior to the vote, lawmakers heard detailed presentations by researchers on both sides of the issue.
According to the federal Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency, "Cloud seeding is a decades-old approach to modifying weather" by planting certain compounds, usually silver iodide, into clouds in the hopes of producing more rain.
In conducting a review of available studies, the GAO concluded that, while the impacts of cloud seeding have been difficult to measure, the practice could increase precipitation by between 0% and 20%.
While some have questioned whether such practices pose a threat to human health and the environment, existing studies have indicated that "silver iodide does not pose an environmental or health concern at current levels," per the GAO.
Some cloud-seeding researchers were invited to present their findings before the Wyoming legislative committee.
"What we found was really quite astonishing," Jeff French of the University of Wyoming told lawmakers regarding research he and colleagues had conducted in southwest Idaho in 2017, per Cowboy State Daily. French explained that he had personally observed "cloud seeding material being added to a cloud, precipitation forming, and falling to the ground."
French called the observations "our eureka moment."
Despite no solid evidence that current cloud-seeding practices pose a threat to humans or the environment, cloud seeding often has been conflated with so-called "chemtrails." Chemtrails have been the subject of a widespread yet completely unproven conspiracy theory that claims the contrails left behind by airplanes are not made mostly of frozen water vapor, as science has shown, but rather dangerous chemicals being sown by powerful, nefarious actors.
Despite being completely unfounded, the chemtrail conspiracy theory found its way into the Wyoming lawmakers' discussion about banning cloud seeding and geoengineering.
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For sure 💯 Tony Locke, a representative from Casper, Wyoming, claimed that he had observed strange zig-zag clouds over his hometown that eventually merged into a "massive cloud haze," per Cowboy State Daily.
"That's not natural," Locke said, clarifying that he was not referencing cloud seeding but rather something "much more dangerous."
Despite some confusion among the public, cloud seeding is also distinct from practices known as geoengineering.
"The public may not fully understand cloud seeding, including how it differs from geoengineering, which affects the climate on longer time scales," the GAO said.
Lawmakers in at least eight other states have introduced legislation that would ban either geoengineering, cloud seeding, or both, according to Duane Morris Government Strategies, a lobbying group.
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