As weather manipulation conspiracy theories about the Texas floods proliferated, Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced that the agency would be sharing “everything we know about contrails and geoengineering” on government webpages in response to “people who asked questions in good faith” being “dismissed, even vilified by the media and their own government.” Two segments on MSNBC and CNN recently broke down weather modification conspiracy theories and Zeldin’s cryptic communication around them. 

Zeldin’s video and webpages came just a few days after severe flash flooding killed at least 130 people in central Texas. 

In a July 10 segment of The Briefing with Jen Psaki, MSNBC’s Psaki described the announcement as a “nod to conspiracy theorists online” and explained how amplifying such claims can disrupt and distract from response and recovery efforts. 

In Florida, it seems that one government official isn’t just nodding to the conspiracy theory; he appears to be embracing it. On July 14, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote a letter to all public airports in the state warning them that “injecting our atmosphere” with chemicals for the purpose of influencing the weather is banned and that “violators of this law are guilty of third degree felonies and fines as high as $100,000.” In the letter, he also suggests “weather modification could have played a role” in the Texas floods, and specifically mentions cloud seeding.

These wild claims didn’t come out of thin air. Conspiracy theorists have repeatedly alleged that the government and private companies are creating extreme weather through cloud seeding, a type of geoengineering used to combat drought and enhance precipitation. Some have also claimed that weather monitoring systems are “weather weapons,” and that condensation trails from planes are actually dangerous chemicals.

Proponents of these conspiracy theories include Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has claimed that geoengineering is “probably as dangerous to us as climate change itself” and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who proposed a bill that “prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperate, climate, or sunlight intensity.”

On a July 12 segment of CNN This Morning Weekend, host Victor Blackwell asked Monica Medina, the former principal deputy administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to react to the congresswoman’s claims about weather manipulation and to the EPA’s new webpages. Medina said, “There is nothing about this storm that was controlled by scientific experiments regarding geoengineering. … This kind of disinformation leads people to think that every part of the warning system can’t be trusted at a moment when they have to move quickly." 

Psaki echoed Medina, pointing out, “There is zero, zero evidence that cloud seeding had anything to do with the Texas floods, and scientists emphasize that this relatively young technology simply cannot produce the kind of rainfall that caused the Texas flooding.” 

Indeed, scientists have explained that what conspiracy theorists refer to as “chemtrails” are actually harmless trails of condensation or contrails, and that it’s “extremely unlikely” that cloud seeding could result in a large-scale disaster like the one in Texas.

Despite Zeldin’s confusing messaging, the EPA’s new webpage confirms what we already knew about contrails and says that “EPA is not aware of any scientific evidence that supports any claim that any nefarious activities are taking place.” 

Nonetheless, “nod[s] to conspiracy theorists” can have real world consequences. Psaki explained how “in Oklahoma, far-right extremists took credit for damaging a local news station's weather radar, falsely claiming that the technology used to track weather events was actually some kind of weather weapon.” 

The station that was attacked linked the event to “rhetoric” from the anti-government group Veterans on Patrol, which also caused chaos during the response to Hurricane Helene last fall.

Conspiracy theories distract from legitimate questions about FEMA’s response in Texas

Psaki contextualized the focus on conspiracy theories by digging into the real issue at play, which is how recent cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency may have hindered the response to the floods. 

She covered several contentious findings, including a CNN report that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem created an emergency funding bottleneck by ruling that all expenses over $100,000 have to be directly approved by her.

Psaki also mentioned a Talking Points Memo report that Noem canceled “a $3 million grant for improving communications between national and local authorities during natural disasters” even as rescue efforts in Texas were ongoing.

Fox News has pushed back against this type of reporting, lambasting Democrats and the media for connecting the disaster to the Trump administration's policies. But the network not only politicized extreme weather tragedies under former President Joe Biden, in the case of Hurricane Helene, also pushed harmful misinformation that hindered relief operations. 

Many factors likely contributed to the tragic impacts of the Texas flood, including decisions made by state lawmakers and local officials, as well as a failure to adequately consider flood maps when building infrastructure. But as Psaki observed at the end of the segment, “This is not how a functioning government responds to crises or prepares to respond to crises, that's for sure.”