Wyoming's comprehensive geoengineering ban creates felony penalties of up to 5 years' imprisonment and $500,000+ fines for atmospheric interventions, while explicitly preserving the state's existing cloud seeding permit system and uniquely tasks the Department of Environmental Quality with monitoring all aircraft, space-based platforms, and ground facilities for prohibited atmospheric contaminant dispersal.
Wyoming's Legislature is requesting Congressional action to prohibit unauthorised atmospheric geoengineering over the state, citing concerns that federal agencies and military contractors are dispersing chemicals such as aluminium oxide, barium, and stratospheric sulphates without public knowledge, while explicitly preserving Wyoming's existing ground-based cloud seeding operations.
Wyoming's geoengineering ban would have ended the state's 13-site cloud seeding program, which brings in $570,000 annually from out-of-state water authorities desperate to boost Colorado River snowpack. The bill died in committee after its fiscal impact on existing water development operations became clear.