An American-Israeli geoengineering startup seeking U.S. government contracts to cool the planet has quietly begun lobbying on Capitol Hill.
Stardust Solutions hired the the law firm Holland & Knight in the first quarter of 2025, but the firm didn’t disclose its lobbying “due to a clerical error,” Holland & Knight spokesperson Olivia Hoch said. Stardust’s lobbying efforts have not been previously reported.
Hoch declined to say how much Stardust had paid the firm or the specific issues it had lobbied on. That information would be disclosed in “the required forms in the coming days,” she said in an email.
Stardust is developing an integrated system to produce reflective particles, distribute them in the stratosphere and monitor their effectiveness. The startup and its investors are hoping the U.S. or a coalition of other governments will eventually decide to pay for the use of its technology.
Stardust is one of the world’s only known companies seeking to profit from solar geoengineering, a process to limit the heat from the sun that hundreds of scientists believe is too dangerous to even study. Critics warn that spraying reflective particles a dozen or so miles above the Earth could disrupt regional weather patterns and food supplies; prompt armed conflicts; and undermine efforts to limit the burning of oil, gas and coal — the main cause of global warming.
While some climate researchers support studying solar geoengineering as a last-ditch measure to turn down the planet’s thermostat, they argue the technology should be developed by academic institutions and government agencies that aren’t attempting to make billions for investors.
“The only way these startups will make money is if someone pays for their services, so there’s a reasonable fear that financial pressures could drive companies to lobby governments or other parties to use such tools,” David Keith of the University of Chicago and Daniele Visioni of Cornell University wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday.
Stardust said it is lobbying for more scrutiny of solar geoengineering efforts, which are largely unrestricted at the federal level.
“We’re not seeking funding or discussing specific laws or regulations in these initial conversations — we’re informing members of Congress about our work and the need for appropriate and robust oversight of Sunlight Reflection research,” Stardust CEO Yanai Yedvab said in a statement sent to POLITICO’s E&E News.
“Such oversight would ensure that research proceeds responsibly and transparently within existing law, with clear limits on all activities — including our own,” he added. “Effective government oversight would also help the US lead in developing responsible global norms, rather than waiting for others to set the rules for this important field.”
Stardust provided the statement to clarify comments Yedvab made during an interview last month with E&E News about its $60 million fundraising haul, the largest-ever investment round for a company seeking to limit global warming by spraying particles into the atmosphere.
The 2-year-old company has now raised a total of $75 million from more than a dozen investment firms, including ones controlled by the billionaire venture capitalist Chris Sacca and the Agnelli family, an Italian industrial dynasty.
Stardust’s foray into lobbying comes amid a historic surge in K Street spending that shows no signs of abating as companies seek to win favor from — and avoid the scorn of — a Trump administration that has disregarded norms limiting the amount of government involvement in industries and companies.
Total lobbying spending has risen steadily since 2016, when lobby shops brought in a combined $3.16 billion, according to disclosure data compiled by the transparency group OpenSecrets. Spending in 2025 has already topped $3.77 billion and is on pace to surpass last year’s record-breaking total, OpenSecrets data shows. Holland & Knight brought in more than $40 million of that lobbying spending since January, making it one of K Street’s top earners this year.
Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that Stardust has hired advocates to make the rounds on Capitol Hill, according to David Rehr, a former lobbyist and trade association leader. But its failure to disclose those efforts “doesn’t look good,” said Rehr, who is now the director of the Center for Business Civic Engagement at George Mason University.
“I’m not suggesting they’re doing anything bad,” he said of Stardust. “But if you’re in a kind of suspicious category, you have to make sure you’re doing everything right.”
