Hacking The Sun

Solar geoengineering... with few rules

By Julia Simon | NPR

Published April 21, 2024 12:01 PM

Andrew Song and Luke Iseman of Make Sunsets ready for a launch. Iseman says they hope to someday cool the earth on a larger scale.

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Julia Simon

NPR

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Topline:

In the past year, the conversation around solar geoengineering as a climate solution has become more serious, says David Keith, geophysics professor and head of a new University of Chicago initiative to study a broad array of climate geoengineering ideas.

What is solar geoengineering? The aim is to harness the sun's power to fight climate change by shooting vast amounts of reflective particles high into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight off Earth.

The issue: But as money flows in – some from investors who hope to profit from this technology – regulations around outdoor experiments and possible broader deployments aren't keeping up, experts say.

Because of the way the stratosphere works, a large-scale release of particles in one part of the world could impact a large part of the planet. Questions persist about possible risks of solar geoengineering for everything from global crops to droughts. And there are risks of unintended consequences that scientists and investors haven't yet imagined – the unknown unknowns of trying to engineer a cooler Earth.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — One morning late last year, an RV pulled into a parking lot on the outskirts of Silicon Valley. Inside it was a blue Ikea bag with huge balloons, and metal tanks full of helium and sulfur dioxide gas.

The mission was led by Luke Iseman, a 41-year-old serial entrepreneur with a mohawk hairstyle and an orange t-shirt that read "Cool Earth." Inspired by a science fiction novel, Iseman had founded a company in 2022 called Make Sunsets. In the novel, a billionaire undertakes a type of "solar geoengineering": shooting vast amounts of reflective particles high into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight off Earth and counter global warming. Now, Iseman was trying to do it in the real world.

Iseman took a wrench and opened the tanks, releasing the sulfur dioxide first and then the helium. He siphoned the gasses into a long tube while his business partner, Andrew Song, stood just outside the RV using the tube to inflate a weather balloon. As the balloon grew to about 6 feet wide, some sulfur dioxide – which can be hazardous to human health in high concentrations – started to leak. I began to cough, and my eyes watered.

"Don't take big whiffs of air," Song said.

"Just don't breathe," Iseman said with a laugh.

A man with light-tone skin weats sunglasses and an orange T-shirt that reads: Cool Earth. Behind him an Asian man in a puffer jacket and cap holds onto a partially inflated balloon resting on the ground. They're next to a camper.

The three balloons that Make Sunsets launched that day made it to the stratosphere – a layer of the atmosphere about six to 30 miles above Earth's surface. When the balloons popped, the sulfur dioxide gas turned to particles– reflecting enough sunlight, the company says, to offset the warming of 175 gas-powered cars for a year. But Make Sunsets and its balloons signal something bigger: a growing number of startups, research projects, and billionaire-backed nonprofits hoping to ready this tech to potentially cool the earth on a wider scale.

In the past year, the conversation around solar geoengineering as a climate solution has become more serious, says David Keith, geophysics professor and head of a new University of Chicago initiative to study a broad array of climate geoengineering ideas. "Suddenly we're getting conversations with senior political leaders and senior people in the environmental world who are starting to think about this and engage with it seriously in a way that just wasn't happening five years ago," Keith says.

But as money flows in – some from investors who hope to profit from this technology – regulations around outdoor experiments and possible broader deployments aren't keeping up, experts say. Because of the way the stratosphere works, a large-scale release of particles in one part of the world could impact a large part of the planet. Questions persist about possible risks of solar geoengineering for everything from global crops to droughts. And there are risks of unintended consequences that scientists and investors haven't yet imagined – the unknown unknowns of trying to engineer a cooler Earth.

Shuchi Talati, founder and executive director of the nonprofit The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, says Make Sunsets' actions crystallize the need for urgent regulation of this tech.

"At some point down the road, they're going to do this at a big enough scale to trigger some sort of climate impact," Talati says. "It can be done in an effective, globally governed way, or it can be done by two crazy people in California, and it can look horrible for a lot of people."

Song holds a balloon while Iseman watches from the RV. "I think regulations have to be holistic to be meaningful, or people, including me, will just game them," Iseman says.

"The allure of the techno fix"

Iseman, a former director at a tech incubator who used to build large art projects at Burning Man festival, acknowledges there's a performative aspect to his work. For his company to have a measurable cooling impact, researchers say it would need to release significantly more material, probably require equipping special planes, and is likely years away.

But Make Sunsets is attracting significant Silicon Valley investment, and is hoping to have that bigger impact. The company has raised more than $1.2 million from venture capital firms like Boost VC, Pioneer Fund, and Draper Associates.

It's unclear how many entities are exploring solar geoengineering, because some projects keep their work under wraps. But Make Sunsets isn't alone.

A U.S.-Israeli startup called Stardust Solutions that plans to someday launch reflective particles into the stratosphere has raised $15 million, according to its chief executive officer and co-founder, Yanai Yedvab. Stardust's investors include SolarEdge, an Israeli green energy company, and Awz Ventures, an Israeli-Canadian venture capital fund that highlights on its website a partnership with Israel's Ministry of Defense.

From sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky to giant sun-reflecting space mirrors, geoengineering the planet to avoid the worst impacts of global warming is capturing the imagination of greater numbers of people. Coming out of the hottest year on record, with governments and industries failing to adequately transition away from fossil fuels, some people are looking for silver bullets. This attraction is especially felt in Silicon Valley, says Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School.

"Climate tech is sexy," Wagner says, "because it's the allure of the techno fix. Look to D.C., and things are messy. Politics is messy. Wouldn't it be nice if we could cut through all of this with the ultimate techno fix that will solve this thing once and for all?"

Iseman says he's motivated by an urgency to act on climate change. World governments agreed to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100. But temperatures have already risen about 1.2 degrees Celsius, and many scientists think the world will blow past 1.5 Celsius. Passing it would mean more catastrophic impacts like lethal heat waves and flooding, coral die-offs and melting ice.

"What we have done has not worked," Iseman says about current efforts to address global warming. "And we need to try many more broad approaches."

Iseman and other solar geoengineering advocates reject the idea of a so-called "moral hazard" with this technology. That's the idea that solar geoengineering will distract from the difficult - and scientifically necessary - work of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and will give fossil fuel polluters continued license to pollute.

"I think we need to do solar geoengineering – hard stop – because the world is too hot. We need to cool it off," Iseman says. "I wouldn't say we should only do that after we start dropping global greenhouse [gas] emissions. 'Cause, frankly, I don't know when we're gonna do that."

Make Sunsets does not employ any scientists. The employees are just Iseman and Song, who met while Iseman worked at a tech incubator and Song worked as an outreach manager at a crowdfunding website. Iseman says if they scale up the company, they'll hire scientists.

Stardust's team includes 20 scientists and engineers, including chemists, aviation experts, and physicists, like the company's CEO, Yedvab. Yedvab wrote in an email that he started looking into the tech two and a half years ago and found that it "is the sole viable option humanity has to stop global warming in the coming decades."

Stardust notes their focus is research in anticipation of future government contracts for deployment.

But there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the science, and experts worry it's too dangerous for companies to have a financial motive to develop and deploy this tech on a larger scale, when there still isn't clear regulation.

"We do know it will reduce global temperatures. That is the one thing we know," Talati says. "We don't know almost everything else."

A man with light-tone skin works on a laptop computer at an RV dining table.

From droughts to "termination shock," the technology poses risks

The type of solar geoengineering Make Sunsets works on is often called "stratospheric aerosol injection," and much of what's known about how it could work comes from volcanoes. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, sulfur dioxide from the eruption spread across the global stratosphere. The particles ended up cooling the world about half a degree Celsius the following year.

Scientists predict the world would, on average, get cooler with this type of solar geoengineering. Compared to other climate tech, it's also very cheap, and – once operational – could have a rapid cooling impact.

But there are lots of unpredictable risks. Computer modeling has limits, says Jonas Jägermeyr, who models impacts of solar geoengineering on global crops at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "It is difficult to know what we are getting ourselves into unless we actually did the experiment on the whole planet," he wrote in an email.

If the world engages in stratospheric aerosol injection, it wouldn't go back to some pre-global warming climate, says Alan Robock, climate scientist at Rutgers University. This type of solar geoengineering could weaken the summer monsoon, meaning some regions – where billions of people live – would see less rain. And it could end up changing the ozone layer and ultraviolet radiation, which could affect crop growth and global food supplies, Jägermeyr says.

Changing temperatures and rainfall patterns could mean new risks for infectious diseases, says Christopher Trisos, chief research officer in the Climate Risk Lab at the University of Cape Town. "Solar geoengineering could shift the population at risk by nearly a billion people for malaria across developing countries," Trisos says.

Then there's "termination shock," which is what it sounds like: the shock of suddenly halting a huge experiment. After injecting particles into the stratosphere, the particles only stay there for a year or two and then fall back to earth. Depending on the material, those falling particles can sometimes create their own environmental and health risks.

Because the particles don't stay up forever, if the world doesn't simultaneously reduce the amount of planet-heating gasses in the atmosphere while doing large-scale solar geoengineering, suddenly stopping the experiment poses a big risk.

"You get a whole rush of global warming and climate change in a very short period of time," Trisos says. "That would be very dangerous for ecosystems, for biodiversity, in many cases, very dangerous for crops and food supplies as well."

A woman with medium-ton skin is photographed in front of a porch railing. She wears a jacket and scarf.

New companies raise fears of regulatory gaps

A growing number of legal scholars say national and international regulations are inadequate to cover potential large-scale deployments of solar geoengineering. As global warming gets worse, "there's going to be a strong desire by someone somewhere to do something," says Tracy Hester, a law professor at University of Houston who studies climate geoengineering. "There will be a temptation to grab the throttle and push ahead."

Hester worries that right now there's no regulatory strategy if that happens: "We need to know what we're doing. The consequences here are pretty massive."

In the U.S., the interactions Make Sunsets has with U.S. government agencies are minimal. Before each balloon launch, Iseman calls up the Federal Aviation Administration and alerts them that he'll be launching weather balloons. Iseman also files a yearly report with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) listing all of the company's "weather modification activities". In one NOAA report in the box marked "project or activity designation," Iseman wrote: "Cooling Earth."

While Make Sunsets was launching balloons in the parking lot, on the edge of a county park, a park ranger drove up to us, got out of the car, asked Iseman and Song a few questions about the balloons, and drove away after less than three minutes.

Iseman spends much of his time in Baja California, and the company has done a number of experiments in Mexico. Last year the Mexican government released a statement saying that they would ban solar geoengineering in their national territory, referencing the activities of Make Sunsets.

But outside of Mexico, things are unclear. There are no international conventions that specifically deal with this type of technology, Hester says. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity – a treaty that protects wildlife – has a moratorium on geoengineering that affects living species. But the moratorium is guidance, and non-binding. And "the U.S. is actually not a party" to the treaty, says Daniel Bodansky, a climate legal expert and law professor at Arizona State University.

The Montreal Protocol, a treaty to address ozone depletion, could potentially cover the ways that stratospheric aerosol injection affects ozone. But that treaty does not currently address all the impacts of the tech, nor does it cover all types of solar geoengineering, Bodansky says.

A large round white balloon rises against a blue sky with something red hanging from it.

Last month Hester, Talati and others filed a petition to NOAA. They asked the federal agency to consider making a rule requiring solar geoengineering companies like Make Sunsets to file more information about what they're doing, and consider regulating American citizens when they do solar geoengineering internationally.

A NOAA spokesperson wrote in an email, "We are currently reviewing the request for rulemaking and will provide a response to the petitioners."

Stardust is doing outdoor small-scale testing "only to the extent required ... and in full compliance with all relevant regulations," Yedvab wrote.

Yedvab, who used to work for Israel's atomic energy commission, adds: "Decision making regarding whether to deploy [stratospheric aerosol injection], when and to what extent should only be taken by governments."

A White House official wrote in an email that solar geoengineering activities in the U.S. must comply with applicable local, state, and federal laws. The email notes that new tech "may present unforeseen circumstances that require new guidance and/or governance mechanisms."

The official did not clarify what that new guidance or governance might look like.

Iseman of Make Sunsets says, "I think regulations have to be holistic to be meaningful, or people, including me, will just game them."

An aircraft carrier sits in the water tethered to a dock

A test on San Francisco Bay

As the private sector grows, not-for-profit entities are speeding up their research.

Earlier this month, a handful of scientists and engineers gathered on deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier on the San Francisco Bay to test a large machine. After about a decade of work, the researchers were readying the machine for one of its first tests outdoors, creating tiny salt water particles that could – someday – reflect sunlight and cool earth.

An engineer scooped salt into a large plastic container, mixing it with water. Then he turned the machine on, letting forth a giant hissing spray of salt water particles down the aircraft runway.

The test represents a different type of solar geoengineering than Make Sunsets' balloons. "Marine cloud brightening" involves brightening ocean clouds to reflect more planet-heating sunlight.

This technology could someday significantly reduce many of the impacts of global warming, says Sarah Doherty, a University of Washington professor who manages this program. But it also has risks. If the particles are too big, they can make the clouds less reflective, and actually warm the planet. An imbalance of cloud brightening off West Africa could cause a drought in the Amazon. For Doherty, these unknowns are a big reason for this research.

"You could see in 20 years from now, people saying, 'Oh my God, we're really in trouble. We've got major climate disruption. Let's do this thing that we know exists.' Well, if we haven't done the research to look at the ways to not do it properly, to not do it in a way that's going to cause more damage, then we're really in trouble," she says.

Four people stand on a raised surface next to water.

The risks are why university researchers, not for-profit companies, should guide studies of this tech, argues Kelly Wanser, executive director of SilverLining, the nonprofit that led fundraising for Doherty's program. The University of Washington program – which also aims to improve current climate modeling – has raised $16 million, mostly from philanthropic climate funds and Silicon Valley scientists. Doherty says there's no strings attached. "They're not gonna ever get anything back out of it other than more science," she says.

Wanser contrasts this with what she calls the "misaligned incentives" of private companies entering the space. In addition to its venture capital fundraising, Make Sunsets sells "cooling credits" – a single $10 credit offsets the warming of 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide, the company says. For Wanser, for-profit companies like Make Sunsets have a monetary incentive to keep releasing balloons, even if the effects could be harmful.

Iseman responds in an email that, "All change is scary, and we can't use 'someday maybe' as an excuse to avoid the bold actions that the climate crisis demands."

But even with university-based solar geoengineering research, there's a need for regulation, says Imran Khalid, a climate policy researcher based in Islamabad. While the aircraft carrier is a museum open to the public – a group of elementary school children came aboard a little while after the test – there are no rules requiring future research projects to be so transparent. And while this study released a small amount of particles, there are no specific regulations to limit a future study from making a larger release.

Given the stakes, Khalid says there should be global input into research frameworks. "Research leads to deployment at some time," he says. "There needs to be a global discussion around this issue."

A U.S. flag waves next to a machine expelling material into the air. The sky is cloudy.

"I have an obligation to do what I can"

Right now, most solar geoengineering research is funded and carried out by people in the Global North, in places like Silicon Valley. That worries Khalid.

"When we're talking about solar geoengineering, it's important to contextualize it from this perspective," he says, "of somebody who's sitting here in Pakistan, who's recently seen the 2022 floods."

Those floods, which scientists found were made worse because of global warming, left almost a third of the country underwater at their peak, and left hundreds of thousands of displaced people in camps. Just as global warming's impacts are often felt more in developing countries, some scientists fear developing countries could also be particularly vulnerable to solar geoengineering's risks.

"You can get some strong kinds of winners and losers," Trisos says. "And that's especially concerning because a lot of these developing countries in the tropics, such as in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America, right now don't have a strong voice in the solar geoengineering conversation."

Some nonprofits are trying to change that. In the past year The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering has started consultations and workshops in South Africa, India and Pakistan to educate local scientists and civil society groups about solar geoengineering. The U.K.-based Degrees Initiative has awarded $900,000 to scientists from Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria and other countries to study solar geoengineering.

During the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi this past February, Switzerland put forth a proposal for more global research on solar geoengineering. While it didn't pass, Talati, who was at the talks, says they left her encouraged. "That was a glimmer of hope for me," she says. "To see so many new countries offering their comments and wanting to engage in this conversation."

From his vantage point on a Zoom call in Silicon Valley, Iseman says it's unfair that he has privileges to act on solar geoengineering while others don't. "I think that it is unfair that I was born as a lower middle class, white-ish American male," he says.

But he says that isn't stopping him from scaling his company: "I have an obligation to do what I can to cool the planet, as does anyone else who actually reads the science."

"We're two guys playing with balloons," Iseman says. "In an ideal world, this shouldn't be something left to dudes with a startup to be doing. But that's the world we're in, for now."

Two people stand near a silver camper van. One holds a deflated balloon.

Explore LA

Ziggy Marley

New album, new NoHo studio

Josie Huang is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.

Published May 30, 2026 5:00 AM

Close-up of Ziggy Marley smiling, wearing a burgundy knit hat and a matching burgundy suit jacket.

Ziggy Marley breaks emotional and creative ground in his new album Brightside

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Leon Bennett

Getty Images

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Topline:

Ziggy Marley is back with a new solo album that includes the first song he's written about his father, Bob Marley. Brightside also marks Marley's experimentation with recording at a different frequency.

What's the frequency: Marley said he recorded Brightside at 432 hertz — a departure from mainstream music recorded at 440 hertz — to change the emotional listening experience.

His own space: Marley recorded at Rebel Lion Studio, his newly-built facility in North Hollywood. After more than two decades in L.A., Marley said the city's concentration of creatives has played a major role in his own growth as an artist.

What's next: Marley says he's already working on his next album, a children's book and a return to film production of some kind, saying he wants to explore his creativity next in a visual medium.

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

Reggae Night XXIV featuring Ziggy Marley and Burning Spear, with a DJ set by Zuri Marley

When: Sunday, June 21, 7 p.m.

Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

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The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

A spacious rehearsal studio or recording room filled with musical instruments, including guitars, keyboards, a drum kit, and congas, set up on patterned rugs.

“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

A smiling Ziggy Marley in a black-and-white knit beanie stands next to a framed, colorful, vintage-style concert poster.

For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley sings into a microphone with his eyes closed while playing an electric guitar on a brightly lit stage.

He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”

About the mansion tax

L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in 2022 to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention. The measure taxes real estate sales over about $5 million. Since taking effect in April 2023, ULA has raised just over $1.1 billion from 1,633 real estate transactions, according to the city’s housing department.

The city projects it will generate about $500 million in the coming fiscal year — about half of what proponents initially promised. It has funded about 800 new affordable units and helped stabilize thousands of renters facing eviction, according to the housing department.

But critics say the tax has suppressed housing development. Several studies link the tax to a slowdown in apartment construction in Los Angeles, but ULA supporters say high interest rates and broader economic conditions are to blame.

The City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA was formed earlier this year to study how the measure is working and develop potential reforms. That work took on more urgency inside L.A. city hall after the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a statewide ballot measure for November that would effectively repeal Measure ULA entirely.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House LA coalition, which campaigned for the original measure, said the City Council committee made the right call by rejecting broader exemptions.

“By not taking up the extreme calls for broad, 15-year waivers that could cost the program about a third of its revenue, the committee acknowledged that ULA is working,” Donlin said in a statement.

A separate group of housing developers, union workers and advocacy groups calling itself the “Mend It, Don’t End It” coalition has been urging city hall to make changes to ULA. On Friday, the group said it supports the measure, but believes targeted reforms are still needed.

“Independent research shows that Measure ULA has slowed housing production in Los Angeles at a time when we need more housing, not less,” said Melanie Mendoza, a coalition spokesperson.

What the data show

The debate over ULA's impact played out in the committee room Friday morning. The city's chief legislative analyst reviewed seven independent studies on ULA’s impact. Three of those studies concluded ULA had suppressed housing production and reduced property tax revenues, while four found no meaningful negative impact.

Before ULA took effect, Los Angeles collected about $22 million a month in transfer tax. After that, it dropped to about $13 million. But city legislative analyst Henry Flatt told the committee a similar decline happened in cities without the tax, including Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita.

“We are not currently convinced that Measure ULA has had an extremely negative impact on general fund revenues,” Flatt told the committee.

The county assessor's office read the same period differently. Scott Thornberry, an assistant assessor with L.A. County, told the committee that commercial and industrial property sales are falling in the city but not elsewhere in the county.

“We are seeing, we believe, a trend line of impact to property tax revenue growth in the city of L.A. specifically," Thornberry said.

What the committee did

Instead of the ballot measure, the committee voted to develop a five-year pilot program cutting the ULA tax to 1.5% for newly constructed affordable housing projects that meet specific requirements.

Lee, whose ballot measure was replaced with language advancing the pilot program, said he hadn't seen the substitute prior to Friday’s meeting and voted against it.

“This was just placed in front of me,” he said. Lee objected to a provision in the substitute recommendations calling for $30 million in new spending on homelessness support.

“Without knowing where this money's coming from, I'm going to have to vote no,” he said.

Lee told LAist he supports stronger oversight and technical improvements to Measure ULA, but believes a ballot measure is the right approach.

“Voters deserve the opportunity to consider targeted changes that would preserve the intent of the measure while addressing its unintended impacts on housing production and real estate activity in Los Angeles,” the councilmember said, in a statement.

Friday's meeting was the committee's final scheduled hearing. The committee, which is set to dissolve June 1, also voted to advance a narrower nonprofit tax refund limited to organizations that can prove all sale proceeds went directly to affordable housing.

The committee continued a separate motion on fire exemptions for Palisades fire victims, which will be heard by another council committee. A motion to loosen eligibility rules for the ULA Citizens Oversight Committee was noted and filed.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced several of the committee's motions, said the process had been guided by a commitment to protect the measure.

"My goal has always been to listen carefully, bring people into the conversation, and protect ULA while honoring the voters' intent," she said at Friday’s meeting.

In her closing remarks, Jurado reflected on the three-member committee’s past work.

“We released $14 million in rental assistance to the most vulnerable Angelenos and $300 million for affordable housing,” she said. “We did in six or seven meetings what others couldn't do in five years.”

The ad hoc committee's recommendations now move to the full City Council.

Harris-Dawson and Lee’s ballot measure motion will be considered by the City Council’s rules committee at a later date, officials said.

Explore LA

Monsterpalooza is here

Celebrate movie monsters in Pasadena this weekend

By Christopher Salazar

Published May 29, 2026 1:10 PM

A light skinned woman wearing eerie makeup that makes her look like a green and pink tinged elf. She's wearing a headpiece made of grass and flowers. Another light skinned woman with tatooed arms, wearing a grey T shirt, is helping to put on the costume and make up.

L.A.-based Makeup Designory School designs a fantasy woodland creature at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Steve Jennings Photography

Courtesy Visit Pasadena

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Topline:

The annual movie-monster bash for horror fans returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend. The event features panel discussions, celebrity photo ops, a monster museum, live makeup demos and over 400 exhibitors.

What can I expect: Rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at the practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

What should I wear: Cosplay as your favorite filmic haunts or don a classic tee celebrating genre history. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.

Read on... for more details about the event.

Monsterpalooza, the annual movie-monster bash for horror fans, returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, starting Friday night (May 29) and lasting through Sunday.

What to expect

Now in its 18th year, devotees can rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

Dozens of panels and presentations are scheduled, including a deep-dive into the 95th anniversary of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies by writer Julian David Stone.

Bright classic horror movie posters for The Vampire and the Bride of Frankenstein make a lively background for a light skinned bald headed man who sits on the stage talking into a microphone.

Stone said that the two classic movies have left a lasting impact.

“Dracula is a movie about supernatural horror..... and Frankenstein is about technological or man-made horror," he said. "You can just trace those two themes all the way forward to this past year with Sinners and Megan 2.0."

A light skinned man in a baseball hat, blue polo shirt and jeans stands next to "armageddon rat", a hideous human sized rat in medievel armor.

Stone first attended the convention in 2008, returning over the years as a fan, spectator and presenter.

“It’s just a terrific convention that celebrates all things horror,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of celebrities you can meet who were in these horror films and you can get pictures with them." He added that he’ll never forget when he met Carla Laemmle in 2010 — the last living cast member of the original 1931 Dracula.

Two men with light tone with grey hair and beards stand either side of a clown with grotesque features wearing a filthy clown costume.

Who's attending

If you’re jonesing to be photographed with high-profile entertainers (expect a fee for many), this year's event has a line-up that includes musician Alice Cooper, actress Lin Shaye from the Insidious movie franchise and David Howard Thornton, who plays Art the Clown in the popular Terrifier movie series.

Cosplay and crazy costumes are encouraged, although a T-shirt celebrating a classic horror movie will also do. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.

MONSTERPALOOZA details

Location: 300 E. Green St., Pasadena

Ticket prices at the door: Friday $50, Saturday $55, Sunday $55, 3-day pass $99

Hours: Friday 6 p.m. - 11 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

More details >

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MONSTERPALOOZA details