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Florida’s House passed a bill to ban weather modification and geoengineering on Wednesday.
The legislation, SB 56, would make unapproved cloud seeding and other similar activities a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison or significantly raised fines of up to $100,000.
The bill was passed on Wednesday in a 82-28 vote, and will now be sent to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Newsweek has contacted the bill’s original sponsor Republican state Senator Ileana Garvia, and Republican Representative Kevin Steele, who introduced it to the House, for comment outside of regular working hours.
The bill was condemned by Democratic state Representative Anna Eskamani, who said it was “feeding into conspiracy theories.”
“I think it’s important that we do not legislate under that type of pressure but that we legislate on science, we legislate on fact, we legislate not on fear but on information,” she said, according to Florida Politics.
“The fact that this bill does not require the consultation of a meteorologist, the consultation of scientists to say [whether this] is suspicious activity is absolutely going to create an environment where things will be reported nonstop, bogging down the department and now potentially bogging down law enforcement who have a lot of more important work to do.”
This is a breaking story. More to follow.