Which other U.S. states have active weather‑modification statutes or administrative programs beyond Colorado, Nevada and Texas?
Executive summary
A patchwork of state laws and administrative programs governs weather modification across the United States: beyond Colorado, Nevada and Texas, numerous Western and Midwestern states maintain active cloud‑seeding programs or statutory frameworks, while a separate wave of recent legislation in other states has moved to ban solar geoengineering or broaden prohibitions on atmospheric interventions [1] [2] [3] [4]. Federal reporting requirements exist but do not replace state authority, leaving the legal landscape fragmented and politically charged [5] [6].
1. How many states have laws or rules that mention weather modification? — A fragmented majority
Multiple surveys and policy reviews report that well over a dozen states have explicit statutes, administrative rules, or programs that reference weather modification; one advocacy and policy tracker counts twenty‑nine states with statutes or regulations that mention weather modification as of recent reviews, highlighting the prevalence of state‑level governance even as federal guidance remains limited [1] [6].
2. The Western cloud‑seeding cohort — operational programs and permits
States in the Mountain West and parts of the arid West are most commonly home to active, operational weather‑modification programs—Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and North Dakota are specifically documented in a legislative staff review of regional weather modification policies as having laws, rules, or active programs to permit and oversee cloud‑seeding operations [2]. Those programs are typically aimed at augmenting snowpack or reducing hail and often require state permits or reporting to state agencies [2] [5].
3. Explicit statutes called out in recent reporting — Wisconsin, Tennessee and others
State statutes or administrative codes explicitly referencing weather modification appear in a number of states cited by policy trackers and legal reviews; Wisconsin’s statutory provisions and administrative code are singled out in one compilation, and Tennessee enacted a high‑profile ban on intentional solar radiation modification and related atmospheric dispersal in 2024, illustrating how some states retain permissive weather‑modification frameworks while others move to prohibit newer geoengineering techniques [1] [3].
4. Newer prohibition laws — Florida, Tennessee and a legislative wave
A separate trend has emerged in 2024–2025: several states moved to prohibit or broaden prohibitions on activities described as affecting temperature, weather, or sunlight — Florida passed a law in mid‑2025 banning certain acts intended to affect temperature, weather, or the intensity of sunlight, and Tennessee earlier adopted a law broadly banning intentional injection or dispersion of substances into the atmosphere for those purposes [4] [3]. Advocacy groups and some state lawmakers framing these bans frequently conflate traditional cloud seeding with large‑scale solar radiation modification, a conflation that critics and subject matter experts caution against [3].
5. Federal overlay — reporting requirements, not regulatory preemption
At the federal level, NOAA administers the Weather Modification Reporting Act, which requires notification of planned weather‑modification activities but does not authorize regulatory control over them; NOAA’s role is chiefly tracking and information collection rather than licensing, leaving substantive governance to states unless federal statutes change [5] [7]. Legislative proposals in Congress (for example, the Clear Skies Act) have sought broader federal restrictions, but as of the cited reporting federal authority remains limited and contested [8] [6].
6. Why the divergence? Politics, water needs, and misinformation
The split between states that host active cloud‑seeding programs and those enacting bans reflects competing motives: water‑resource management and agricultural priorities drive mountain and western states to maintain programs, while political concerns, constituent fears about “geoengineering,” and misinformation have propelled bans in other states [2] [3]. Some advocacy organizations promoting bans appear to emphasize state sovereignty and precautionary approaches, while industry and water managers emphasize established, localized cloud‑seeding practices with narrow objectives—both camps have explicit policy agendas that shape legislation and public messaging [9] [3].
7. What reliable conclusions can be drawn from available reporting?
Reporting and policy reviews indicate a two‑track reality: many Western and agricultural states continue to operate under statutes or administrative programs that permit cloud seeding and other localized weather modification (Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, Wisconsin and others are documented), while a growing number of states have recently adopted or proposed bans aimed mainly at solar radiation modification and related atmospheric dispersal methods [2] [1] [3] [4]. Precise counts vary by source and by whether one includes older statutes that have been repealed or recently amended, so mapping the status of every state requires checking current state codes and agency pages for the most recent changes [9] [1].