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 platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you
caught up quickly. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.