Pennsylvania : 2023-2024 Regular Session : BILL SB1264
Prohibiting solar radiation modification, cloud seeding and polluting atmospheric activity within this Commonwealth; imposing duties on the Pennsylvania State Police and sheriffs; and imposing penalties.
Sponsor: Sen Doug Mastriano & Sen Cris Dush
Bill Details
An Act prohibiting solar radiation modification, cloud seeding and polluting atmospheric activity within this Commonwealth; imposing duties on the Pennsylvania State Police and sheriffs; and imposing penalties.
Bill summary
Prohibited Activities:
- Prohibits solar radiation modification, cloud seeding, and any "polluting atmospheric activity" in Pennsylvania.
- The ban applies to everyone, including individuals, businesses, local governments, universities, federal agencies, and military forces from both the United States and other countries.
Enforcement Mechanisms:
- If someone suspects illegal activity, the Pennsylvania State Police or county sheriffs must quickly issue a cease-and-desist order.
- These cease-and-desist orders have the same power as court orders.
- Law enforcement can report possible violations to the Pennsylvania Air National Guard.
- State or local officials can tell federal agencies that activities those agencies approve are not allowed in Pennsylvania.
Penalties:
- Conviction for a serious offence
- A minimum fine of $500,000 (USD)
- A minimum prison term of 2 years
- A person can receive both penalties at once.
- Each day the illegal activity continues is treated as a new offence.
- Additional penalties from Pennsylvania's Air Pollution Control Act of 1960 also apply.
Unusual Provisions:
- The law uses comprehensive definitions, including things like machine learning, artificial intelligence, electromagnetic fields, sound waves, light pollution, and "trans-biological" agents.
- It also bans activities involving "unmarked or unidentified aircraft or other vehicles."
- Sheriffs, who are county law enforcement officers, have the same authority as the State Police to enforce this law.
- The law includes explicitly federal and international groups in its definition of a prohibited "entity."
- The Air National Guard is also involved in enforcing the law.
History
SB1264 was introduced on June 20, 2024, by Senators Mastriano and Dush and referred to the Senate Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee the same day. As of the available records, the bill remains in committee with no further action taken.
The bill was introduced during Pennsylvania's 2023-2024 regular session, which began January 7, 2025, and extends through December 31, 2025. Pennsylvania operates with a two-year legislative session and allows carryover from the 2024 portion to the 2025 portion of the same biennium, meaning bills introduced in 2024 remain active through the end of 2025. However, bills do not carry over between bienniums (2025 to 2026), so if SB1264 does not pass by December 31, 2025, it would need to be reintroduced in the 2025-2026 session beginning January 6, 2026.
- Thu 20 Jun 2024 Referred to AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Supplementary documents
Memo from Senator Doug Mastriano
I will soon be introducing legislation to assure Pennsylvanians that the clean air, water and healthy environment guaranteed to them in the Pennsylvania Constitution (Article 1, Section 27) are better protected.
In 1967, the General Assembly had the foresight to pass a law to regulate weather modification involving cloud seeding experiments after unauthorized attempts by a group using planes and ground generators to emit silver iodide into the air to suppress hail in Fulton and Franklin counties, as well as information about the US and other countries experimentation in weather manipulation for national security and potential weaponization purposes, came to light.
The White House last year released a report, "Congressionally Mandated Research Plan & Initial Research Governance Framework Related to Solar Radiation Modification" providing documentation that the Federal Government, or other entities acting on the Federal Government's behalf or at the Federal Government's request, may conduct solar radiation modification (SRM), or geoengineering experiments involving the release of air contaminants into the atmosphere, and those activities may occur within this Commonwealth.
Allowing the release of unknown, experimental, and potentially hazardous substances into the atmosphere without the consent of the people of Pennsylvania is a clear violation of Article 1, Section 27 of the PA Constitution.
With the 1967 law for weather modification control as precedent, and joining ten other states this year in proposing related legislation, The Clean Air Preservation Act will prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals, chemical compounds, or substances within the borders of Pennsylvania into the atmosphere for purposes which include affecting temperature, weather, and intensity of sunlight. This legislation was introduced in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Illinois, South Dakota, Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina, Minnesota, and Ohio -- and passed into law in Tennessee.
Please join me in cosponsoring this important legislation.
Bill text
SENATE BILL No. 1264 Session of 2024
INTRODUCED BY MASTRIANO AND DUSH, JUNE 20, 2024
REFERRED TO AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS, JUNE 20, 2024
AN ACT
Prohibiting solar radiation modification, cloud seeding and polluting atmospheric activity within this Commonwealth; imposing duties on the Pennsylvania State Police and sheriffs; and imposing penalties.
The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hereby enacts as follows:
Section 1. Short title.
This act shall be known and may be cited as the Clean Air Preservation Act.
Section 2. Definitions.
The following words and phrases when used in this act shall have the meanings given to them in this section unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:
"Air National Guard." The Pennsylvania Air National Guard, a reserve component of the United States Air Force.
"Artificial intelligence." The term refers to systems or machines that mimic human intelligence to perform tasks and can iteratively improve themselves based on the information it collects and can manifest in a number of forms.
"Atmospheric activity." Any deliberate polluting activity conducted by any iteration of human, machine learning or artificial intelligence, or any combination thereof, that occurs in the atmosphere and may have harmful consequences upon health, the environment or agriculture.
"Cloud seeding." A type of weather modification that attempts to change the amount or type of precipitation by dispersing chemicals such as silver iodide, potassium iodide and dry ice into the air by means of aircraft or ground generators.
"Entity." Any of the following: (1) Individual. (2) Trust. (3) Firm. (4) Joint stock company. (5) Corporation, including a quasi-governmental corporation. (6) Nongovernmental organization. (7) Partnership. (8) Association. (9) Syndicate. (10) Municipality or municipal agency. (11) Program. (12) Fire district. (13) Club. (14) Nonprofit agency. (15) Commission. (16) University or college located in this Commonwealth. (17) Department or agency of this Commonwealth. (18) The Federal Government or any interstate or international governance or instrumentality thereof, including foreign, domestic and mercenary armed services or region within the United States.
"Geoengineering." The intentional alteration or manipulation of the environment, involving the release of nuclear, biological, chemical, trans-biological, electromagnetic or other physical agents or pollutants that effect changes to Earth's atmosphere or surface and is inclusive of weather modification, aerosol injection into the stratosphere or cloud seeding.
"Hazard." A process, substance or physical agent by its nature that is harmful to living organisms generally or to property or another interest of value.
"Machine learning." The process in which a machine can learn on its own without being explicitly programmed.
"Physical agent." An agent, other than a substance, including, without limitation, RF/MW and other electromagnetic radiation and fields, barometric pressure, temperature, gravity, kinetic weaponry, mechanical vibration and sound.
"Pollutant." Any solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant, contaminant or substance, including smoke, vapor, soot, fumes, aerosol plumes, acid, alkalis, chemicals, artificially produced electric fields, magnetic field, electromagnetic field, electromagnetic pulse, sound waves, sound pollution, light pollution, microwaves and all artificially produced ionizing or nonionizing radiation or waste.
"Pollution." The discharge, dispersal, deposition, release, seepage, migration or escape of pollutants.
"Release." Any activity that results in the issuance of contaminants such as the emitting, transmitting, discharging or injecting of one or more nuclear, biological, trans-biological, chemical or physical agents into the ambient atmosphere, whether once, intermittently or continuously.
"Sheriff." A Pennsylvania sheriff, the Constitutional officers responsible for county law enforcement.
"Stratosphere." The region of the upper atmosphere extending upward from the edge of the troposphere to about 30 miles above the Earth.
"Troposphere." The region of the lowest layer of the atmosphere, six to twelve miles high in altitude, wherein temperature steadily drops with increasing altitude and nearly all cloud formations occur and weather conditions manifest.
"Waste." Includes materials to be recycled, reconditioned or reclaimed.
"Weather engineering." The deliberate manipulation or alteration of the environment for the purpose of changing the weather or climate by artificial means, typically involving the deliberate release of polluting emissions in the atmosphere via cloud seeding, for small-scale, large-scale and global-scale alteration of the environment.
"Weather modification." Changing, controlling or interfering with or attempting to change, control or interfere with the natural development of cloud forms, precipitation, barometric pressure, temperature, conductivity or other electromagnetic or sonic characteristics of the atmosphere.
Section 4. Prohibited activity.
The Pennsylvania State Police or a sheriff shall immediately issue a cease-and-desist order when unlawful cloud seeding or polluting atmospheric activity is suspected by an entity. The cease-and-desist order under this section shall have the weight of a court order and any violation shall be punished in accordance with section 6.
Section 5. Notice to cease Federal or foreign-approved programs.
(a) General rule. Government and armed forces projects must meet all the requirements of this act. If an activity deemed a hazard by this act has been approved, explicitly or implicitly, by the Federal Government, the Pennsylvania State Police or a sheriff shall issue a notice to the appropriate Federal agency that the activity cannot lawfully be carried out within or over this Commonwealth.
(b) Implementation. The Pennsylvania State Police or a sheriff is authorized to and shall implement this act, determining whether violations have occurred and, if deemed necessary, shall refer potentially prohibited activity to the Air National Guard.
Section 6. Penalties and enforcement.
An entity that engages in an atmospheric activity or uses an unmarked or unidentified aircraft or other vehicle or facility to carry out a weather engineering or other polluting atmospheric activity shall: (1) Have committed a felony and shall pay a fine of not less than $500,000 or be imprisoned for not less than two years, or both. (2) Be guilty of a separate offense for each day during which activity has been conducted, repeated or continued. (3) Be deemed in violation and subject to any further penalties of the act of January 8, 1960 (1959 P.L.2119, No.787), known as the Air Pollution Control Act.
Section 7. Effective date.
This act shall take effect immediately.