Assertion Supported
DiRico: Rainmaker and cloud seeding had no connection to Texas floods
“Rainmaker and cloud seeding had nothing to do with the flooding that unfolded”
Opinion
DiRico: Marjorie Taylor Greene's weather modification bills lack scientific credibility
“I think it would be both disrespectful to the families involved and baseless and without any technical or scientific credibility if that legislation were to go through”
What-if
DiRico: Tropical Storm Barry would have caused Texas flooding regardless
“Tropical Storm Barry, the remnants of which blew into Texas, was going to cause inordinate flooding regardless.”
Assertion Contradicted
DiRico: Rainmaker suspended Texas cloud seeding over two days before floods
“It was over two days prior that Rainmaker had suspended all of its cloud seeding operations in Texas, because one, our forecasters and our meteorologists saw that there was going to be this severe weather event, and we needn't operate to produce more water whe…”
Assertion Partly supported
DiRico: Rainmaker suspended Texas operations two days before flooding occurred
“It was over two days prior that Rainmaker had suspended all of its cloud seeding operations in Texas because, one, our forecasters and our meteorologists saw that there was going to be this severe weather event, and we needn't operate to produce more water whe…”
Assertion Supported
DiRico: Rainmaker's July 2 flight released 70g silver iodide and 500g salt
“On July second, we conducted 1:19 minute cloud seeding flight where we released about 70 grams of silver iodide and 500 grams of salt, table salt. That was released at about 1600 feet above ground level into two clouds that dissipated over the course of two ho…”
Disclosure
DiRico: Rainmaker flew a single 19-minute seeding mission on July 2
“On July second, we conducted 1:19 minute cloud seeding flight where we released about 70 grams of silver iodide and 500 grams of salt, table salt. That was released at about 1600 feet above ground level into two clouds that dissipated over the course of two ho…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
DiRico: Lack of federal weather oversight invites unaccountable foreign operations
“If we don't have access to weather modification technology, If we don't regulate this at a federal level and ensure that there's accountability and attribution for these activities, then other people, other nation states could be conducting weather mod in the …”
Opinion
Doricko: Cloud seeding is the only way to supply water to Arizona
“Like you need it to come from either the mountains in Flagstaff or the Colorado River. And the only way to get it, there's cloud seeding.”
Assertion Partly supported
Doricko: 29 US States Have Proposed Legislation Banning Weather Modification
“The state of the union is 29 states this year have proposed legislation to carte blanche all weather modification and atmospheric engineering.”
Opinion
Doricko: Banning Cloud Seeding Is Like Banning Rocketry or Fission
“I think that if you ban five seating, you're basically banning like rocketry or fission.”
Assertion Supported
Doricko: Decades of studies show no health impacts from cloud seeding silver iodide
“People have done 80 or 30 or 50 years, depending on the watershed, studies on the concentration of silver iodide that ends up in the water and the soil. And after decades of operation, you only see parts per trillion of this stuff. Like, you need super sophist…”
Assertion Supported
Doricko: Silver iodide is less toxic by lethal dose than table salt
“If you think about the, like, LB-fifty, like the lethal dose of silver iodide, it's less than salt. It's less than table salt. It's milligrams per kilogram with salt, and then it's 2800 for silver iodide. So this is like a resoundingly safe material to be usin…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Doricko: No reliable data shows cloud seeding causes downwind drought
“The evidence of downwind drought is totally uncompelling. Nobody's provided reliable data there”
Disclosure
Doricko: Rainmaker will launch a land fund in 2026 to terraform desert
“I'm going to wait until Q one or Q two, 26 to do this, but we're just going to stand up a land fund and we're just going to start buying up the land that currently isn't arable, primarily in Arizona and California, because the same acre of land that's worth li…”
Assertion Open · timeframe Mar 2028
Doricko: Rainmaker supplies water more cheaply than desalination
“We can bring water more cost-effectively than even desalination.”
Assertion Contradicted
DiRico: China increased annual weather modification budget to $1.4B in 2025
“China recently, I think on the last time I was on TBPN, I talked about how they had a three hundred million dollar annual budget for their weather modification program. That as of 20, 25 has been up to 1.4 billion dollars.”
Assertion Partly supported
DiRico: China is deploying 100,000 cloud-seeding generators in Tibet
“But in building, ah, a 100,000 of these ground generators, and also using the Wing Long II and a bunch of their other military drones for aerial cloud seeding they're turning Tibet into, ah, a reservoir, a snowpack reservoir of unprecedented scale that will fe…”
Assertion Contradicted
DiRico: China increased weather modification budget to $1.4B in 2025
“China recently, I think on the last time I was on TVP and I talked about how they had a three hundred million dollar annual budget for their weather modification program, that as of 2025 has been up to 1.4 billion dollars.”
Disclosure
DiRico: Rainmaker advocates for increased federal regulation of cloud seeding
“And so that's why I am advocating for way more regulatory scrutiny from the federal government for cloud seeding and weather mod ops.”
Opinion
Doricko: Nobody knows how TSMC's Arizona plant will get its water
“Particularly like the teams, the TSMC plant in Arizona, nobody knows where the water for that's going to come from.”
Insight
Doricko: Cloud seeding politics split East-West over water, not Left-Right
“It's not really like a right-left issue, so much as it is like an east-west, west issue, because the west doesn't have water. So Democrats and Republicans alike on the western half of the US are like, oh, this is sick. I would love to have water. Then the peop…”
Insight
Doricko: Desert reforestation requires water conveyance and cloud seeding
“You need the water though, so unless you're setting up enormous conveyance systems, which China largely is, and cloud seeding in addition to that, it's a non-starter.”
Assertion Supported
Doricko: Tennessee is trying to criminalize weather modification
“They're actually trying to elevate the punishment for weather modification to a criminal offense.”
