‘Terrible idea’: Top Trump official reveals how tinkering with the sun could land companies in hot water

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin told reporters on Tuesday that some future geoengineering attempts might violate the Clean Air Act.

Geoengineering spans a wide range of activities, including those that attempt to cool the Earth or remove certain gases from the atmosphere, according to the EPA’s website, which provides up-to-date information on related practices.

Zeldin said in response to a Lion question on geoengineering Tuesday that he is “concerned” about these efforts and believes they are a “terrible idea,” though the few entities experimenting with it are not currently running widescale operations. If that were to change, Zeldin said companies may violate the Clean Air Act, the federal law that regulates air emissions.

For example, Make Sunsets is a U.S.-based entity releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere through small amounts via weather balloons as part of what Zeldin described as “somewhat of a fundraising drive to raise awareness and try to get people to give them money, so that they can scale up and do larger releases of sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere.”

Notably, the agency requested information from Make Sunsets in April 2025 “to find out more about this questionable start-up and activity.”

“We stay on top of this information, so as soon as it comes out, we can assess it as far as the Clean Air Act goes. I would say – I’ll be careful how I word this – but the larger the release, the more clear-cut case it is of a potential violation of the Clean Air Act, as opposed to someone who puts a balloon up with a little bit of the sulfur dioxide,” Zeldin said. “Am I concerned about it? Very much so. I think it’s a terrible idea, and if they did scale up, I’d be extraordinarily concerned with that scale up.”

Zeldin also noted while several entities announce geoengineering plans, few are actually executing their ideas.

“You have a lot of news that you’ve been reading of entities that aren’t actually doing it, they’re just talking about it, and one entity that’s actually doing it, but they’re doing almost none of it,” Zeldin said, adding, “we’re definitely keeping a very, very close eye on it.”

Zeldin has previously defended Americans who are concerned about geoengineering efforts, telling reporters in December they should not be written off as “tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists.” In October, he told reporters he has concerns about “solar radiation modification, stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud brightening and more” and does not believe “anybody should be playing God with the weather.”

Additionally, some lawmakers have moved to block geoengineering development. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Florida, introduced legislation in February that would prohibit weather modification efforts nationwide while Florida and Tennessee have already done so at the state level.