Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
the critical crossroads, the Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
First, I yield to Ranking Member Stansbury for her opening
statement. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Well, DOGE is back and there's going to be a lot to unpack in
this hearing. But I think first and foremost,
we want to acknowledge that the purpose of this subcommittee and
why it was created in the 1st place by the majority was to
root out waste, fraud and abuse. That's literally the mandate for
the DOGE subcommittee, and I want to emphasize that we remain
focused on that mission. In fact, we are working on a
report on the waste, fraud and abuse that we're currently
seeing in this administration. And I think it's important to
also recognize that we are 14 days from a government shutdown.
And so I'm troubled to see that the subcommittee, which is
designed to address government spending, to streamline
efficiency of government programs, has strayed so far
from its mission, especially as there's such pressing matters
facing our country, including a government shutdown.
The passage of the big ugly bill, which not only drove the
federal deficit by $4 trillion, but is kicking millions of
Americans off their healthcare and about to make their
healthcare premiums go up, tariffs that are causing
inflation to go up and putting small family businesses out of
business And administration that's flouting the rule of law
every day. And a total lack of transparency
in the Epstein case is the administration has still refused
to comply with the subpoena that this committee issued.
So there's a lot of important things that this committee could
tackle. And I would think that a topic
involving environmental science would be more well suited to a
committee that actually deals with science or environmental
issues. But I am happy to talk about
climate change and weather modification.
It's a topic that I've spent many years in my career working
on. In fact, I worked more than 20
years as a water resources manager working on drought and
water planning issues in the state of New Mexico.
So and I know how important addressing drought and water
issues is for our farmers and ranchers out there and
personally and professionally, there's a lot to discuss with
respect to weather modification and so.
We're going to talk about it. Let's talk.
About it. Certainly there's a lot of DOGE
related topics we could talk about with respect to climate
change and weather programs, including the dismantling of
climate, natural resources and emergency response programs, the
firing of federal officials, dismantling of EPA, the illegal
freezing of federal funding, removal of the US from
international climate agreements, dismantling clean
energy programs, catastrophic response to natural disasters,
including what we saw in Texas. And all of these topics would be
ripe for an oversight hearing. So I hope that we can use this
hearing to discuss some of those issues.
But with respect specifically to weather modification, whether
it's cloud seeding or other technologies, I actually agree
with many of the assertions about the need for further
discussion for their science and potentially further regulation
of these particular technologies.
But it's important that we distinguish between fact and
fiction, between clickbait and real solutions.
So let's talk about some facts. Weather modification and cloud
seeding, as was mentioned, it's a real thing.
It exists. It has been practice in varying
forms since the 1940s. Increasingly, folks are looking
at this as a opportunity to increase rain and precipitation.
But the science is still out on many of these technologies, and
we absolutely need to understand what are the implications for
air quality, for precipitation, and the implications also for
water rights in the West, because this could have far
reaching implications. But it's also important to
understand that many of these technologies are in the R&D
phase. They're in limited use in the
number of states. And it's not actually
technologies that the federal government even widely supports.
This is largely in the private sector.
So in the world of science, it is widely acknowledged that more
science is needed to understand use, efficacy and impacts of
these technologies. So those are the facts.
Those are the facts. But it's hard to understand why
we're discussing banning these practices outright in this
committee when the oversight committee in another
subcommittee, literally as we're sitting here right now, is
having a hearing about dismantling the Environmental
Protection Agency. And the actual bill under
discussion in this committee is trying to use the EPA to
regulate these particular practices.
So the inconsistency and governance is very, very
confusing here. But there's a more insidious
issue here, which I think we've already heard and some of the
comments, which is the using. Of the.
Platform of Congress to proffer anti science theories to
platform climate denialism and to ultimately put our
communities at risk by continuing to put out
disinformation. So I'm grateful that we're
joined today by Doctor McCracken, who has spent his
career very distinguishedly at the national labs helping to
bring together scientists globally and across the United
States to understand climate change, its impacts and to help
our communities really understand what is real here in
terms of the science. And we hope to dig in to
understand what we can do to help address drought, fire and
flooding and how it's impacting our communities.
So with that, I yield back and I think the gentlelady, hey, thank
you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your
support. If you could take a second and
hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
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please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
tomorrow.