For Regulated Rainmaking

The U.S. Senate, worried about what science has wrought, began hearings last week on three bills to support and control rainmakers. Most fervent witness in favor of prompt control was Robert McKinney, chairman of the New Mexico Economic Development Commission. Most of New Mexico, he said, is infested with fly-by-night commercial rainmakers who seed the sky irresponsibly with large amounts of silver iodide. Hired by drought-plagued ranchers and farmers, they are making lots of money, but their clumsy, uncoordinated efforts are producing little rain. Experts have often pointed out that too much silver iodide may prevent rain instead of causing it.

New Mexico's Senator Clinton P. Anderson, sponsor of one of the bills, warned that large, independent and unregulated attempts at cloud-seeding "might produce droughts all over one part of the country, floods all over another, and throw our defense organization more out of kilter than five atomic bombs."

Many witnesses urged that the new rainmaking techniques be used on a nationwide scale, with generous federal support. Most impressive was Dr. Vannevar Bush, former head of the wartime Office of Research and Development. Scientific rainmaking, said Bush, is "a very early art ... but I have become convinced that it is possible under the proper circumstances to make rain." Bush urged federal action, but he had one reservation: the U.S. Weather Bureau, which is still skeptical about rainmaking, should not get the job.

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