Kansas : 2025-2026 Regular Session : BILL SB449

Introduced

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Enacting the clean air preservation act to prohibit solar radiation modification, geoengineering, weather modification, cloud seeding and other polluting atmospheric experiments or interventions and creating a crime for violation thereof.

Sponsor: Sen Federal and State Affairs

Bill Details

GeoLawWatch Bill Summary

Prohibitions:

This bill prohibits all geoengineering, weather modification, solar radiation modification, cloud seeding, and other "polluting atmospheric interventions" within or over the state of Kansas. The prohibition applies to all entities, including individuals, corporations, government agencies, foreign entities, and artificial intelligence systems.

Definitions establish an extremely broad scope:

"Geoengineering" covers intentional large-scale environmental manipulatio,n including solar radiation modification, stratospheric aerosol injection, cirrus cloud thinning, marine cloud brightening, and cloud seeding
"Pollutant" encompasses aerosols, chemicals, metals, radioactive materials, electromagnetic fields, sound waves, light pollution, and microwave radiation
"Atmospheric activity" includes any experiment or intervention releasing pollutants by humans, machine learning, or artificial intelligence

Enforcement Mechanisms:

Law enforcement agencies are designated as primary enforcers and must develop enforcement policies with the Air National Guard within 120 days of enactment. If federal approval exists for any activity deemed hazardous under this act, law enforcement must notify the federal agency that the activity cannot lawfully occur within Kansas.

The Air National Guard may interdict violating aircraft, document identification and tail numbers, secure photographic evidence, sample aerosolised effluents using mass spectrometers, and escort aircraft to the nearest airport for investigation.

Communications facilities must be evaluated by independent, licensed radiofrequency engineers, paid for by the facility owners. Signal strength metered at any location cannot exceed -75 decibel-milliwatt for any frequency specified by the facility's FCC license. Non-compliant facilities have 30 days to achieve compliance, and law enforcement will conduct random testing.

Penalties:

Violations constitute a severity level 7 felony (11-34 months imprisonment under Kansas sentencing guidelines) with fines of:

Up to $100,000 for corporations where officers, directors, or employees commit the violation
Up to $5,000 for individual aircraft operators or controllers

Each day of prohibited activity constitutes a separate offence. Communications facilities operating above signal strength limits face fines up to $50,000 per day of non-compliance.

Unusual Provisions:

The bill explicitly includes "artificial intelligence" as an entity capable of committing violations. It also repeals Kansas's entire existing weather modification regulatory framework (the Kansas Weather Modification Act of 1974, K.S.A. 82a-1401 through 82a-1425), eliminating the state's licensing and permitting system for weather modification activities.

History

SB 449 was introduced in the Kansas Senate on Monday, February 2, 2026, by the Committee on Federal and State Affairs. This committee introduction means the bill entered the legislative process with committee backing rather than through individual sponsor filing. The bill was entered at the start of Kansas's 2026 session, which began January 12, 2026.

Kansas operates on a biennial legislative cycle, starting in odd-numbered years, with no automatic carryover between the two years. Bills introduced in the second year (2026) face a compressed timeline, with introduction deadlines typically in early February and the crossover deadline (by which bills must pass their chamber of origin) falling on February 19, 2026. Final adjournment is scheduled for April 10, 2026.

Mon 02 Feb 2026 Senate Introduced
Tue 03 Feb 2026 Senate Referred to Committee on Federal and State Affairs

Consolidated Bill Text

Session of 2026

SENATE BILL No. 449

By Committee on Federal and State Affairs

AN ACT concerning weather modification; enacting the clean air preservation act; prohibiting solar radiation modification, geoengineering, weather modification, cloud setting and other polluting atmospheric experiments or interventions; creating a crime for violation thereof and imposing penalties thereto; repealing the Kansas weather modification act; repealing K.S.A. 82a-1401, 82a-1402, 82a-1403, 82a-1405, 82a-1406, 82a-1407, 82a-1408, 82a-1409, 82a-1410, 82a-1411, 82a-1412, 82a-1413, 82a-1414, 82a-1415, 82a-1416, 82a-1417, 82a-1418, 82a-1419, 82a-1420, 82a-1421, 82a-1422, 82a-1423, 82a-1424 and 82a-1425.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:

New Section 1. (a) This section shall be known and may be cited as the clean air preservation act.

(b) As used in this act, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:

(1) "Air national guard" means the Kansas air national guard, which is the aerial militia of the state of Kansas.

(2) "Artificial intelligence" means a field of science and technology encompassing systems and tools that can perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, pattern recognition and decision-making, often through computational techniques like machine learning and neural networks.

(3) "Atmospheric activity" means any experiment or intervention involving the release of pollutants, 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.

(4) "Chaff" means aluminum-coated silica glass fibers typically dispersed in bundles containing 5,000,000 through 100,000,000 inhalable fibers that fall to the ground in about one day, or for nano-chaff, years, and then fall and break apart. Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known also as forever chemicals, are an ingredient in chaff.

(5) "Cloud seeding" means a type of precipitation by dispersing chemicals or aluminum into the atmosphere by means of aircraft or ground generators.

(6) "Entity" means an individual, trust, firm, joint stock company, corporation, including a quasi-governmental corporation, nongovernmental organization, partnership, association, syndicate, fire district, club, nonprofit corporation, commission, postsecondary educational institution, governmental entity, any interstate or international governance or instrumentality of the federal government, including foreign, domestic and mercenary armed services or region with the United States, artificial intelligence or any other legal or commercial entity.

(7) "Geoengineering" means the intentional large-scale alteration or manipulation of the environment, typically involving the release of aerosols, chemicals, chemical compounds, electromagnetic radiation or other physical agents that increase air pollution and effect changes to earth's atmosphere or surface, including solar radiation modification, sunlight reflection methods, climate intervention, stratospheric aerosol injection, cirrus cloud thinning, marine cloud brightening or cloud seeding.

(8) "Hazard" means a substance or physical agent that by its nature is harmful to living organisms, generally, or to property or another interest of value.

(9) "Intervention" means the act of interfering with weather processes, altering atmospheric or environmental conditions or releasing pollutants by methods that include, but are not limited to, solar radiation modification, sunlight reflection methods, stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening, cirrus cloud thinning, weather modification, cloud seeding and outdoor pollution dispersion modeling.

(10) "Law enforcement officer" means the same as defined in K.S.A. 12-16,139, and amendments thereto.

(11) "Machine learning" means the process in which a machine can learn on its own without being explicitly programmed.

(12) "Physical agent" means an agent other than a substance, including, but not limited to, radiofrequency or microwave radiation and other electromagnetic radiation and fields, barometric pressure, temperature, gravity, kinetic weaponry, mechanical vibration and sound.

(13) "Pollutant" means aerosol, biologic or genetically modified agent, chaff, metal, radioactive material, acid, alkali, chemical, chemical compound, containment, microelectronic mechanical systems or smart dust, smoke, soot, substance, fume, vapor, air pollutant regulated by the state of Kansas, mechanical vibration or other physical agent, particulate, waste, including materials that may be recycled, reconditioned or reclaimed, solid liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or artificially produced electric field, magnetic field, electromagnetic field, electromagnetic pulse, sound wave, sound pollution, light pollution, microwave radiation or ionizing or non-ionizing radiation.

(14) "Release" means 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 of continuously.

(15) "Solar radiation modification" or "sunlight reflection methods" means an experiment in the earth's climatic system involving the release of pollutants that reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface. "Solar radiation modification" or "sunlight reflection methods" involves the use of interoperable ground-based, airborne and space-based facilities.

(16) "Weather engineering" means the deliberate manipulation of the environment for purposes that include changing the weather or climate by artificial means, typically involving the release of pollutants into the atmosphere through or by means of cloud seeing, for small-scale, large-scale and global-scale alterations of the environment.

(17) "Weather modification" means changing, controlling or interfering with or attempting to alter, control or interfere with the natural development of cloud forms, precipitation, barometric pressure temperature, conductivity or other electromagnetic or sonic characteristics of the atmosphere.

(c) (1) All government and military projects shall meet the requirements of this act. If any activity deemed hazardous by this act has been approved, explicitly or implicitly, by the federal government, a law enforcement agency shall issue a notice to the appropriate federal agency that the activity cannot lawfully be carried out within or over the state of Kansas.

(2) Law enforcement agencies shall implement this act, which shall include determining whether violations of this act have occurred and, if deemed necessary, referring potentially prohibited activity to the air national guard. Within 120 days after the enactment of this act, law enforcement agencies and the air national guard shall develop a policy to determine the process for assessment of violations and the enforcement procedure.

(3) If deemed necessary, the air national guard may interdict document identification tail numbers, secure photographic evidence, sample aerosolized effluents or particulates, utilize mass spectrometers and other appropriation scientific instrumentation and engage with an aircraft violating this act to escort such aircraft to the nearest airport for investigation, securing of evidence and documentation of violation.

(4) Solar radiation modification and other atmospheric experimentation methods include the use of interoperable ground-based, airborne and space-based facilities and heightened radiation levels. Communications facilities shall be subject to evaluation by an independent licensed radiofrequency engineer paid for by the facility owner. Evaluation shall include current purposes and future capabilities of facilities, including potential uses of artificial intelligence.

(5) The radiofrequency engineer shall provide findings in a report to be submitted to local law enforcement agencies. The radiation signal strength metered at the reported location shall not exceed -75 decibel-milliwatt for any frequency or channel band specified by a transmitting entity's United States federal communications commission transmission license. If signal strength metered by the radiofrequency engineer is in excess of -75 decibel-milliwatt, the facility operator shall have 30 days to achieve compliance without disruption to performance of personal wireless services. Law enforcement agencies shall perform random testing from time to time to ensure facility compliance with this act. Failure to comply shall result in a fine of not more than $50,000 per day for each day that the facility is not in compliance. Deliberate falsification or altering of information related to this section shall constitute a violation of this act. All entities operating in the state of Kansas shall comply with the requirements of this section.

(d) An entity that engages in a polluting atmospheric intervention or uses an unmarked or unidentified aircraft or any other vehicle or facility to carry out a weather engineering or other polluting intervention shall:

(1) Be guilty of a severity level 7 felony and pay a fine of not to exceed $100,000 if a corporation, the officers, directors or employees of such corporation commit such felony or a fine of not to exceed $5,000 if an aircraft operator or controller commits such felony;

(2) be guilty of a separate offense for each day that prohibited activity has been conducted, repeated or continued; and

(3) be deemed in violation of this act and be subject to any further penalties of Kansas pollution laws.

Sec. 2. K.S.A. 82a-1401, 82a-1402, 82a-1403, 82a-1405, 82a-1406, 82a-1407, 82a-1408, 82a-1409, 82a-1410, 82a-1411, 82a-1412, 82a-1413, 82a-1414, 82a-1415, 82a-1416, 82a-1417, 82a-1418, 82a-1419, 82a-1420, 82a-1421, 82a-1422, 82a-1423, 82a-1424 and 82a-1425 are hereby repealed.

Sec. 3. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its publication in the statute book.