Policymakers Need Solar Reflective Methods Research — NOT Conspiracy Theories
By Quentin Scott, Federal Policy Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
What if scientists might one day have tools that could temporarily slow down the worst immediate effects of climate change, protect millions of lives, and buy us more time to advance the clean energy transition?
What if those tools could help slow the melting of glaciers and sea-level rise in New Orleans, Miami, and low-lying cities across the country? What if we could reduce the number of dangerous heat events like the ones we experienced this month?
Now, what if your elected representatives were actively trying to ban research into these tools that could save lives? That’s not a hypothetical. It’s what happened this legislative session in statehouses across the country.
Seventy Bills Built on Misinformation
In 2026, lawmakers introduced 70 bills across 29 states to ban or restrict research into a suite of technologies that could potentially cool the planet on a temporary basis and buy us more time to cut carbon pollution. Let that number sink in. That’s not a fringe movement: that’s a coordinated legislative campaign, largely driven by climate-denying, conspiracy-oriented right-wing networks, to ban even the possibility of learning if such technologies are viable options to save our planet.
At hearing after hearing, testimony relied on misinformation. In Alabama, witnesses claimed that tiny particles that reflect sunlight, a form of solar radiation management scientists are researching, were giving bees Alzheimer’s. In South Carolina, a key witness linked this climate research to Bill Gates “controlling populations.” And in New Hampshire, a witness showed pictures of “chemtrails,” pushing a debunked conspiracy theory that airplanes are secretly spraying chemicals. The witness testified that “they” — whoever “they” are — “are severely spraying.”
None of these conspiracy theories are grounded in evidence. And there is one glaring hole in their argument: no geoengineering is currently deployed at climate‑relevant scale. We’re just talking about researching this new technology — not yet deploying it. Multiple bill sponsors, when asked directly, even admitted they had no firsthand knowledge of geoengineering occurring in their states – because it’s not. It’s not happening anywhere.
One Arizona sponsor acknowledged he didn’t have “specific knowledge” it was happening but said he had “testimony coming up that may lead to the conclusion that there might be some of that going on.” They won’t find anything because there isn’t anything to find. A Rhode Island sponsor described the topic as “the Wild West” and said, to his credit, that “most people, myself included, know very little about it.” And that’s exactly the problem: lawmakers are legislating based on confusion, not evidence.
Scientists, Farmers, and Agencies Push Back
Researchers, climate groups, business leaders, and even state agencies testified against these bad bills. In Maryland, I testified that the bill penalizes research and that “whatever the underlying concern, this bill doesn’t solve it.” Business groups expressed concerns that the broadly written language could capture everything from agriculture cloud seeding and snow-making at ski resorts to everyday farming equipment that emits sulfur dioxide.
In South Dakota, the state’s Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources disagreed with sponsors’ ‘assurances’ that farmers would be exempt from the bill’s bans. This is what a legislative effort built on misinformation looks like: chaotic, technically incoherent, and disconnected from science.
What Happened When the Bills Faced Legislatures
How far did these bills actually get? Not very.
Of the 70 bills introduced, 60 are dead. One (Arizona’s HB2042) passed its legislature but was vetoed by the governor. Only one bill has been signed into law; it’s an add-on to a law Louisiana passed last year, expanding the list of prohibited chemicals. That’s it.
The volume of bill introductions and the energy behind this effort, and the picture it paints, become clear: for all the noise, these bills have almost no legs.
The pattern is consistent: bills are introduced, get a hearing, but once they run into simple questions — How do you enforce this? What counts as geoengineering? Would this affect farmers? Would this ban legitimate research? — they stall. The conspiracy theories don’t hold up to scrutiny. Neither does the policy.
Why Research Must Come Before Deployment
I’ve spent my career working on climate policy. I know how badly we need every tool in the toolbox. And solar reflective methods (SRM) research — not deployment, research — is one of those tools we cannot afford to kneecap before we even understand it.
Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) does not support SRM deployment. We do support studying whether it could work, what the risks are, who would be affected, and who would get a say. Those are responsible questions. And we need to know those answers—before other nations, private companies, and rogue billionaires make those decisions for us.
Banning SRM research does not make these technologies disappear. It only ensures that, if they are ever used, or if someone else proceeds without public oversight, we will be unprepared.
Here’s what I find especially troubling about this legislative trend: the bills that got the furthest weren’t necessarily the most scientifically coherent; they were the ones in states where the political environment made it easier to move fast and ask questions later. In some hearings, no substantive debate was held at all. A committee vote with no substantive discussion is not a policy process: it’s a vibe check.
Meanwhile, the federal government has shown more interest in restricting climate science than in building the governance frameworks we actually need. That vacuum creates space for state-level chaos like this. And it’s why groups like CCAN are pushing for transparent, publicly funded, equitably governed research. The alternative is to leave these decisions to private companies with no guardrails or to legislatures that openly admit they don’t understand the technologies they’re voting on.
The Fight is Not Over
The good news from this session is that when scientists, farmers, business groups, state agencies, and environmental advocates showed up to say “wait, have you thought this through?”, most of the bills collapsed. That matters.
The 2026 state legislative session is over in most states, which means the immediate threat from this wave is largely contained — for now.
But this threat isn’t going away. The same networks that drove this session’s bills will be back. Louisiana’s law will give advocates a new template to point to. As climate impacts worsen and SRM research receives more public attention, the political pressure around these technologies will only intensify.
The question for the climate movement isn’t whether SRM will be on the research agenda. It already is. The question is whether the people who care most about equity, transparency, and the future of the planet will be in the room when the decisions are made.
If scientists and climate advocates aren’t in the room, the room doesn’t just go away. It just gets populated with self-interested private actors and foreign governments instead. Declaring an outright ban on this research makes this outcome even more likely.
The Bottom Line
Seventy bills. Twenty-nine states. Zero new laws passed this year.
By the numbers, this legislative session was a failure for the anti-research effort. But we’re not ready to relax just yet. We know that the opposition to responsible climate research is organized, loud, and will be back next year.
CCAN will be watching. We hope you will be, too.
About the author: Quentin Scott (he/him) joined CCAN in January 2021 as part of the newly created CCAN Federal Team. He moved from Chicago specifically to build political will for groundbreaking national climate and climate justice policies. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he got a first-hand look at the two Americas and sought to bring the two Americas closer together through advocacy.
Before joining CCAN, Quentin was chief of staff for an Illinois State Representative and a legislative correspondent in the US House of Representatives, and has led numerous issue and candidate campaigns across the Midwest and East Coast. In his roles, he has stood with neighborhood groups to hold industrial polluters accountable in communities of color and looks forward to bringing that fight to the federal level.
