Politics
Democratic Senate Sponsor Of Marijuana Banking Bill Says Budget Issues And War Have Delayed Cannabis Reform Efforts
The Democratic Senate sponsor of a marijuana banking bill says that, despite efforts to coordinate meetings around the legislation, other priorities have taken precedence for now.
Still, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) told Marijuana Moment that he’s hopeful the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act will be taken up “sooner than later.”
In a brief interview on Capitol Hill last week, Merkley was asked about the status of the measure, which cleared a Senate committee last year but never made it to the floor and has not yet been introduced during the current Congress. The bill would prevent federal regulators from penalizing banks simply for working with state-legal cannabis businesses.
“We’ve tried to schedule several meetings. We keep trying to do it,” he said. “There’s been will, but other things like war and reconciliation” have distracted from the marijuana banking legislation.
Asked about recent comments Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH)—the lead GOP sponsor of the SAFER Banking Act this session who told Marijuana Moment that he doesn’t expect the bill to come up until this fall—Merkley said, “Hopefully sooner than later in my mind.”
Action—or inaction—on the marijuana banking bill has been a consistent source of frustration for advocates and industry stakeholders, who have characterized it as a commonsense public safety imperative that would normalize an ever-expanding sector of the economy.
In January, the office of Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), who is again leading the effort on the House said, told Marijuana Moment that he would be filing the cannabis banking legislation this session but that its introduction was “not imminent” as some earlier reports had suggested.
A leading anti-marijuana group recently sounded the alarm about a possible attempt to put the cannabis banking measure in a cryptocurrency bill that was advancing on the Senate floor, but that didn’t come to fruition.
With Republicans in control of both chambers and key leadership positions filled by opponents of marijuana legalization, it’s been an open question about whether any cannabis reform legislation stands a chance of passage in the short-term. That’s despite the fact that President Donald Trump endorsed marijuana industry banking access, federal rescheduling and a Florida legalization initiative on the campaign trail. However, he’s been silent on the issue since taking office.
On the House side, a Republican lawmaker said in March he’s hopeful that Congress will be able to get a marijuana banking bill across “the finish line” this session, arguing that the current barriers to financial services for the industry represent a “second tier” of prohibition.
Cannabis industry banking challenges came up in several congressional hearings in March, including a Senate Banking Committee meeting on debanking where senators on both sides of the aisle addressed the lack of financial services access for marijuana businesses.
Meanwhile, in January congressional researchers released a report detailing the subject of debanking—while making a point to address how the marijuana industry’s financial services access problem “sits at the nexus” of a state-federal policy conflict that complicates the debate.
Separately, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced in December that it’s convening focus groups comprised of marijuana businesses to better understand their experiences with access to banking services under federal prohibition.
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The industry remains frustrated with the lack of progress on the cannabis banking issue under the last administration.
A Senate source told Marijuana Moment in December that Republican House and Senate leadership “openly and solely blocked” then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) attempt to include the bill in a government funding bill as the session came to a close.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) had challenged the idea that there was enough GOP support for the SAFER Banking Act to pass on the Senate floor during the lame duck session.
Warren accused certain Republican members of overstating support for the legislation within their caucus, while also taking a hit at Trump for doing “nothing” on cannabis reform during his time in office as he makes a policy pivot ahead of the election by coming out in support of the marijuana banking bill and federal rescheduling.
Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) also recently argued in an interview with Marijuana Moment that the main barrier to getting the marijuana banking bill across the finish line is a lack of sufficient Republican support in the chamber. And he said if Trump is serious about seeing the reform he recently endorsed enacted, he needs to “bring us some Republican senators.”
Prior to becoming House speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) consistently opposed cannabis reform, including on incremental issues like cannabis banking and making it easier to conduct scientific research on the plant.
Meanwhile, on the one-year anniversary of a Senate committee’s passage of the SAFER Banking Act in September, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis on the economic impact of the reform, including the likely increase in federally insured deposits from cannabis businesses by billions of dollars once banks receive protections for servicing the industry.
Separately, the CEO of the financial giant JPMorgan Chase said recently that the company “probably would” start providing banking services to marijuana businesses if federal law changed to permit it.
The LCB contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
