EPA website debunks “chemtrails” theory after Texas flood

In the wake of deadly flooding in Texas, the Environmental Protection Agency has created two websites to combat conspiracy theories around weather manipulation.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the two sites, which focus on the topics of geoengineering and airplane contrails, in a video shared on Thursday. The Trump Cabinet member said Americans have “legitimate questions” about non-existent, weather-manipulating technology. He said the resources were for “anyone who’s ever looked up to the streaks in the sky and asked ‘what the heck is going on?'”

“The Trump EPA is committed to total transparency,” he said. “Instead of simply dismissing these questions and concerns as ‘baseless conspiracies,’ we’re meeting them head-on.”

The EPA website on contrails states in no uncertain terms that “chemtrails” are a myth. The term is used among conspiracy theorists who believe that the contrails of vapor that can form behind an airplane’s engines are actually chemicals being distributed from high altitude. The EPA said those claims are inaccurate, but added that it was “reasonable to ask questions” about unfamiliar phenomena.

Zeldin’s announcement came mere days after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., floated a bill to ban weather modification. Greene’s legislation lent credence to the conspiratorial belief among some members of her MAGA base that weather-manipulating technology exists and is used to target regions of the country.

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called the idea baseless.

“To the best of my knowledge, there is zero evidence of anything related to anything like weather modification,” Cruz told reporters on Monday. “Look, the internet can be a strange place. People can come up with all sorts of crazy theories.”

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Zeldin was less willing to laugh off the concerns of cranks.

“The EPA shares many of the same concerns when it comes to potential threats to human health and the environment,” he said. “The enthusiasm for experiments that would pump pollutants into the high atmosphere has set off alarm bells at the Trump EPA.”

Watch Zeldin’s announcement below:

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