A recent Government Accountability Office report has exposed significant shortcomings in federal oversight of geoengineering and weather modification activities in the United States. The findings highlight inadequate monitoring and reporting mechanisms that could allow untracked operations and fuel public misinformation. Experts call for improved transparency to address these issues amid growing interest in climate interventions.
The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, released a report in early 2026 detailing the federal government's insufficient oversight of weather modification activities. It states that authorities are not fully meeting responsibilities to maintain and share reports on these operations. According to the report, this lack of supervision risks permitting harmful geoengineering without monitoring, while poor transparency contributes to public confusion.
Karen Howard, the GAO’s director of science and technology assessment, emphasized the need for a more accessible database. “If people had a place to be referred to, where they could see, ‘Oh, this place in Idaho, they’re cloud seeding to try to increase the snow for a ski area,’ it would address what is actually occurring, and not what people imagine is occurring,” she said. Many state agencies and companies remain unaware of requirements to report to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Reporting forms, unchanged since 1974, fail to cover emerging technologies like solar geoengineering and often contain errors or omissions. NOAA receives reports but does not verify their accuracy, simply adding them to a database.
As of February 2025, NOAA’s database held 1,084 reports, with only four related to solar geoengineering, such as stratospheric aerosol injection or marine cloud brightening. Cloud seeding, used for over 80 years to boost precipitation by 5 to 20 percent, has expanded in the drought-stricken West. However, conspiracy theories persist, including false claims linking cloud seeding to July floods in Texas, prompting then-Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to introduce the Clear Skies Act, which aimed to criminalize weather modification but failed in committee. By last July, 30 states had proposed similar bills, with Tennessee, Florida, and Louisiana enacting bans; Wyoming avoided one after warnings of water shortages.
Brad Brooks, director of Cheyenne’s Board of Public Utilities, noted the stakes: “I have 70,000 plus people that we provide water to, and I’ve got to find additional water resources to make up for that shortfall.” A prior GAO report called for more research on cloud seeding’s effectiveness. Jeff French, a University of Wyoming atmospheric science professor, described it as “a tool for helping to augment precipitation” but not a full solution.
The GAO recommends that NOAA create guidelines for report reviews, update forms, and better inform local agencies. In July, a University of Washington-led solar geoengineering experiment in the San Francisco Bay Area was halted by Alameda officials due to lack of prior notification. Howard stressed the need for research: “I’m not saying it’s hazardous. I’m saying we need research to know a) whether it’s effective, and b) whether there are unintended consequences that we might not be aware of. That research is not really occurring right now.”