61-04.1-08. Powers and duties of the department.

The department has the following powers and duties:

1. The department shall adopt rules concerning qualifications, procedures, and conditions for issuance, revocation, suspension, and modification of licenses and permits; standards and instructions governing weather modification operations, including monitoring and evaluation, recordkeeping, and reporting, and the department shall establish procedures and forms for this recordkeeping and reporting. The department may adopt all other rules necessary to the administration of this chapter. The provisions of chapter 28-32 apply to this chapter and rules of the department must be published in the North Dakota Administrative Code.

2. The department may contract with any person to carry out weather modification operations and, in connection with regulated weather modification operations in a county or geographical region, shall carry on monitoring and evaluation activities.

3. The department may order any person who is conducting weather modification operations in violation of this chapter or any rules adopted to implement this chapter, to cease and desist from those operations and the order is enforceable in any court of competent jurisdiction within this state.

4. The department may cooperate and contract with any person engaged in activities similar to the work of the department and may make contracts and agreements to carry out programs consistent with the purpose and intent of this chapter. The department may request and accept any grants of funds or services from any person and expend these funds or use these services to carry out this chapter.

5. The department shall monitor the current state of knowledge regarding the magnitude and impacts of possible regional and global climatic changes and shall provide information to other state agencies that may benefit from this knowledge.

6. The department shall administer and enforce the provisions of this chapter and do all things reasonably necessary to effectuate the purposes of this chapter.

7. The department may plan and study a hail suppression pilot program that would provide urban and rural hail suppression operations statewide or to any portion of the state.