sources. It would be unrealistic to require that a special NOAA group, assisted by a computerized data processing system, continuously analyze weather data and information on weather modification activities on a real-time basis "to record and evaluate weather modifications, to appraise the effect which any proposed weather modification activity would have on prevailing weather conditions and to monitor weather modification activity". These things cannot be accomplished given the present state of the art in weather modification and meteorological measurement.

.

As you may know, the Subcommittee on Climate Change of the Domestic Council's Environmental Resources Committee completed a detailed study in December 1975, of the Federal role in weather modification. The study addressed research, operations, and regulation. With respect to H.R. 10039, one finding of the study was that legislation for comprehensive regulation is not needed at this time. This conclusion was based on the increasing degree of sophistication in the most recent State laws governing weather modification and on an examination of recent weather modification litigation. In particular, these few court cases do not show an increase of problems due to a lack of regulations. For this reason and for the reasons and thoughts expressed above, the Department of Commerce believes that H.R. 10039 should not be enacted.

The other bill, S. 3383, would authorize and direct the Secretary of Commerce to develop a national policy and program on weather modification. As mentioned in previous testimony on a related bill by Senator Bellmon, this proposed study would be one in a long line of previous reviews of what the Nation should do in weather modification. Studies have also been conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, the General Accounting Office, and by the Domestic Council's Subcommittee mentioned above. It should be noted that the previous studies did not bring together each and every element of the problem for review in depth or for further formulation of a comprehensive national policy and program in weather modification. However, on balance, I believe these studies, each in its own time, addressed the most critical problems among the various diverse elements. Therefore, the Administration believes that serious consideration needs to be given as to whether another study is really required at this period in time.

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN W. TOWNSEND, JR., ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY DR. RONALD L. LAVOIE, DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATION OFFICE, NOAA

Dr. TOWNSEND. Mr. Chairman, let me just highlight the first twothirds of my statement and then be more specific with comments on the two bills under consideration, and then you can question me.

The first part of our statement deals entirely with programs that we have underway in NOAA. I would like to remind you that Project Stormfury is one of NOAA's activities and has been given a high priority. It is the project aimed at modifying hurricanes. The second important area of research for us has been the modification of tropical and subtropical cumulus clouds. This is the work that has gone on down in Florida. There have been references to it earlier this morning. The work started out by using a technique known as massive seeding on individual cells that was successful, but we recognized that to really augment the rainfall one would like to bring a number of clouds together-so-called cloud mergers. That seems to have been successful. We are now investigating the question of whether we are robbing Peter to pay Paul here and that is why we are looking at a large area to see whether indeed we are creating more rainfall or whether it would fall naturally anyway and we are simply relocating it. We have an active project underway again this summer in the Florida area.

75-308 - 76 - 12

I would like to mention one other project which I am rather pleased with. This work is with lightning suppression and in this particular case we have adopted and gone down a different road than the Department of Agriculture. We have been using chaff to essentially short circuit clouds. Now that is a crude description but it is basically what happens. There is an interesting lesson in that we were just about prepared to give up on this project 3 years ago when our people convinced us that there was more hope than was apparent. They then proceeded to have two successful seasons. They were not the same kind of massive statistical projects that really should be done here but it did convince us to keep the work going. Finally as some of you may know, it has turned out to be successful enough so that we were on standby service in Florida during the Apollo-Soyuz launch. The work has now led to much enhanced activity regarding lightning, a joint project between ourselves, NASA, Department of Defense and a number of universities.

I also would like to highlight another area of expertise in NOAA and this has been with respect to Public Law 92-205, which was discussed earlier. This is the law that sets up the requirement for reporting weather modification activities. We have been reporting under that program in accordance with the law, and in my view have been very successful. It has also provided us a data base to answer the multitude of letters and questions that we get concerning weather modification, particularly in areas that are not too favorably disposed toward these activities. What will most frequently happen is a letter comes in and alleges there has been weather modification when, in fact, our reporting systems shows there has not been any.

Turning now to the legislation under discussion, I think these bills require careful consideration. The first, H.R. 10039, calls for the Secretary of Commerce to carry out a program of research and development, to establish a weather modification information system, to institute a control and reporting system, and to maintain a register of qualified weather modifiers. It also encourages cooperation with other nations and repeals the reporting law, Public Law 92–205.

In connection with our reporting program under this law, some recent data from calendar year 1975 activities may be of interest in that it helps put our national weather modification activity in perspective. There were projects at 72 separate locations during the year and at 74 in 1974. Of these totals, 14 were federally sponsored in 1975 and 9 in 1974. The number of commercial weather modifiers was 15 in 1975 and 19 in 1974. In both years, the number of Federal operators was five. In 1975, 25 States had one or more projects; in 1974, the number was 22. Increased precipitation was the major goal of the activities in these and other years. Hail suppression and fog dispersal were the next most common objectives. In view of these facts, the present scope of weather modification in this country seems to be stable and limited. Our data also shows that operational projects are about 4 times more plentiful than research programs.

In H.R. 10039, the weather modification information system, title II, warrants comment. Because of our experience with the reporting program, I believe that the requirement for daily reports to the Department of Commerce by the operator would place a heavy burden on him, would represent an unnecessary expense to him, and would be

of doubtful use to the Department of Commerce. In addition, the present degree of monitoring under the reporting program and applicable State laws appears to be adequate.

The requirement in section 304(a) 3(D) for “a description of any weather modification resulting from such activity," to be made part of the daily report is not realistic. Even the most carefully controlled, federally sponsored field experiments often require several years before conclusive results can be determined. The average private weather modifier does not take the measurements necessary for an adequate evaluation nor can he afford to do so. The effectiveness of a given weather modification technique can only be shown by adequately funded, well designed and executed field experiments such as the national hail research experiment of the National Science Foundation, "Project Stormfury" of the Department of Commerce, or the high plains cooperative program of the Department of Interior.

Mr. BROWN. May I interrupt you at that point. This is one I have been concerned about for some time, particularly over the adequacy of monitoring programs for collection of data for climatological and other kinds of data. Your statement mentions lack of resources and private modifiers to monitor the results leads me to ask whether in the case of your own experiments, for example in precipitation augmentation, do you deploy a special monitoring system which is aimed at determining whether there has been any supplementing of existing rainfall, or other measuring systems in the area so that you have in effect a monitoring system that will give you what you feel is an adequate amount of data so that the results of your operation can be assessed?

Mr. TOWNSEND. Yes, sir, we do. Let me describe the situation in Florida. There we have a large area which includes the target area and surrounding area instrumented very intensively with rain gages on the ground, they are denser in the target area than the outside, but there are a lot of them. In addition we have specially calibrated radars at a number of sites that look at the air volume that is affected. The aircraft that are used are specially instrumented. During the time that we operate, special computer programs are run, taking a look at the meteorological situation and at the safety situation. We are very careful at least I hope we are and are certainly very conscious about the possibility of inadvertently creating a serious storm. We have criteria that we set forth, under which we will not seed under certain conditions.

We are also using satellite data. Densitometer traces are taken from the top of clouds and related to the radar data which gives us a feel for how much water there is in the clouds. We have the Doppler radar active.

This is a very major effort. The actual seeding part of that experiment is relatively modest in cost compared to the instrumentation. Mr. BROWN. That clarifies that point, thank you.

Dr. TOWNSEND. As described in the bill, the weather modification information system would be impossible to implement in a meaningful manner, even with the unlimited resources. It would be unrealistic to require that a special NOAA group, assisted by a computerized data processing system, continuously analyze weather data and information on weather modification activities on a real-time basis "to

record and evaluate weather modifications, to appraise the effect which any proposed weather modification activity would have on prevailing weather conditions and to monitor weather modification activity" These things cannot be accomplished given the present state of the art in weather modification and meteorological measurement.

As you may know, the Subcommittee on Climate Change of the Domestic Council's Environmental Resources Committee completed a detailed study, in December 1975, of the Federal role in weather modification. The study addressed research, operations, and regulation. With respect to H.R. 10039, one finding of the study was that legislation for comprehensive regulation is not needed at this time. This conclusion was based on the increasing degree of sophistication in the most recent State laws governing weather modification and on an examination of recent weather modification litigation. In particular, these few court cases do not show an increase of problems due to to a lack of regulations. For this reason and for the reasons and thoughts expressed above, the Department of Commerce believes that H.R. 10039 should not be enacted.

Mr. BROWN. May I interrupt you again at this point? Doesn't the problem arise from the fact that some of the effects of weather modification activities may extend across State boundaries despite the adequacy of individual State laws. There would obviously be a gap if the problem covers two or more States which had differing or inconsistent legislation covering a particular phenomenon if that situation

occurred.

Dr. TOWNSEND. That situation is of concern to us. To my knowledge, it has not occurred. There have been allegations, but to my knowledge there have been no specific instances.

Let me go back in time a little bit to express a personal point of view. At one time, I was a member of ICAS and was deeply involved in this problem. The members of ICAS convinced one another that regulation was required and even went through the chore of drafting a bill. You already must recognize from the testimony that there are a lot of divergent points of view in weather modification and ICAS had a real job to bring all agencies around. We finally convinced ourselves it was necessary, and at that particular point in time-it was under a different administration OMB resisted just on the basis of "look you haven't proved that it is really needed."

Since that time I have changed my own point of view, and I think Bob White has too, that really it would have been premature then. There just have not been enough instances of some of the things that concerned us at that time. It also, of course, would have put a heavy burden on the industry and it would have, I think, been detrimental. That is an honest opinion. In this particular case, I switched myself; however, I do foresee a time in the future when regulation is going to be required here. But again, I would wholly agree with what Al Eggers said, and that is until we know precisely what we are regulating, we should not attempt to regulate it. If it develops, for example, that downwind, or crosswind or even upwind effects are significant, then, indeed, we will be faced with the problem and we also may be faced with it internationally, if activities take place near our borders or places where other countries are affected.

The other bill, S. 3383, would authorize and direct the Secretary of Commerce to develop a national policy and program on weather modification. As mentioned in previous testimony on a related bill by Senator Bellmon, this proposed study would be one in a long line of previous reviews of what the Nation should do in weather modification. Studies have also been conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, the General Accounting Office, and by the Domestic Council's subcommittee mentioned above. It should be noted that the previous studies did not bring together each and every element of the problem for review in depth or for further formulation of a comprehensive national policy and program in weather modification. However, on balance, I believe these studies, each in its own time, addressed the most critical problems among the various diverse elements. Therefore, the administration believes that serious consideration needs to be given as to whether another study is really required at this time. That concludes my prepared statement.

Mr. BROWN. Dr. Lavoie, do you have anything that you would like to add to what Dr. Townsend has stated or has he adequately covered it?

Dr. LAVOIE. He has covered it very well, sir.

Mr. BROWN. In looking at the existing legislation which calls for a modest recording program which you in NOAA administer, you indicated that you feel that it is generally adequate to meet the current needs and current state of knowledge about this field. There are no modifications or extensions of this act that you feel would be useful or desirable at the present time?

Dr. TOWNSEND. No, sir, I do not believe there are.

We have just recently published in the Federal Register some changes in our own procedures to streamline them a bit and eliminate some problems that were shown in the reports on the basis of our experience. We have an interagency agreement at the secretarial level with other Federal agencies for bringing them in the reporting process and that seems to be working very well.

I think for the time being we are getting the data we really need to answer the questions we are faced with, questions of the type-what is the level of activity, where is it taking place, is it changing, is it increasing or decreasing and so forth. We also have a basis for answering a lot of letters that we get. Some people are convinced that there is a massive plot afoot in the Federal Government to modify the weather in particular parts of this country and it has been very hard to disabuse them of this notion, particularly when there is a drought in the area concerned.

Mr. BROWN. There are some droughts of a serious nature in various parts of the country today.

Dr. TOWNSEND. Yes, sir.

Mr. BROWN. You should be getting more letters about them.

Dr. TOWNSEND. Yes, sir, we do. There is an area just to the west of us here, the so-called tristate area, western Maryland, south-central Pennsylvania and a little bit of West Virginia where some people are absolutely convinced that there is a massive Federal seeding effort of

some sort.