When it comes to the fate of marijuana banking legislation in the Senate, there are more questions than answers at this stage, with the chairman of a key committee walking back his insistence that the bill to be tied to sentencing reform. Nonetheless, the senator is saying he\u2019s still in talks with leadership about incorporating it into a broader cannabis decriminalization proposal.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was pressed on next steps for the Secure And Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which cleared the House on a bipartisan vote last week<\/a>. Specifically, he was asked about the possibility of attaching language to provide protections for banks that work with state-legal cannabis businesses to a more comprehensive piece of marijuana legislation.<\/p>\n Brown told<\/a> MarketWatch that he\u2019s talking to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about the issue, but it\u2019s \u201cnot clear what we\u2019re going to do there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is interest certainly from both parties. There is interest in sentencing reform as part of it,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is some interest in decriminalization generally, not legalization.\u201d<\/p>\n Schumer, who said he will put a bill to end federal prohibition on the floor \u201csoon,\u201d recently told Marijuana Moment that he\u2019s not interested in passing the banking legislation as a standalone bill before the chamber advances his proposal. Doing so could undermine support for his bill<\/a>, he suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will hope to include things that deal with banking and finance\u201d in the legalization measure, Schumer said.<\/p>\n Brown, for his part, has made clear that he\u2019s not eager to move on the SAFE Banking Act<\/a>, citing reservations about certain provisions. \u201cI think we need to look at a number of things,\u201d he said in an earlier interview, adding that \u201cI will look at this seriously. We\u2019re not ready to move on it.\u201d<\/p>\n One thing the chairman previously said he wanted to do was tie the cannabis banking legislation to sentencing reform<\/a>. That\u2019s fine by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), sponsor of the House version of the SAFE Banking Act who said he\u2019s fine with making it a \u201cbigger bill,\u201d but now it seems Brown is being open to dropping that condition.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m pretty open on it. It\u2019s not something I\u2019ve done a lot of work on yet,\u201d he said last week. \u201cI know there\u2019s committee interest in both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n As it stands, the banking legislation has 34 cosponsors in the Senate, plus its sponsor Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), which means more than a third of the chamber is already formally signed on.<\/p>\n The\u00a0vote in the House last week<\/a>\u00a0marked the fourth time the chamber has approved the SAFE Banking Act. Lawmakers passed it as a standalone bill in 2019 and then twice more as part of coronavirus relief legislation. At no point did the measure move forward in the Senate under Republican control last session, however.<\/p>\n The legislation would ensure that financial institutions could take on cannabis business clients without facing federal penalties. Fear of sanctions has kept many banks and credit unions from working with the industry, forcing marijuana firms to operate on a cash basis that makes them targets of crime and creates complications for financial regulators.<\/p>\n After it passed the House last Congress, advocates and stakeholders closely watched for any action to come out of the Senate Banking Committee, where it was referred after being transmitted to the chamber. But then-Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) did not hold a hearing on the proposal, despite talk of\u00a0negotiations taking place regarding certain provisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Crapo said he opposed the reform proposal, but he signaled that he might be more amenable if it included certain provisions viewed as untenable to the industry, including a two percent THC potency limit on products in order for cannabis businesses to qualify to access financial services as well as blocking banking services for operators that sell high-potency vaping devices or edibles that could appeal to children.<\/p>\n When legislative leaders announced that the SAFE Banking Act was getting a House vote in 2019, \u00a0there was pushback from some advocates who felt that Congress\u00a0should have prioritized comprehensive reform<\/a>\u00a0to legalize marijuana and promote social equity, rather than start with a measure viewed as primarily friendly to industry interests.<\/p>\n Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus and an original cosponsor of the bill, said last month that the plan is to\u00a0pass the banking reform first this session<\/a>\u00a0because it \u201cis a public safety crisis now,\u201d and it\u2019s \u201cdistinct\u2014as we\u2019ve heard from some of my colleagues\u2014distinct from how they feel about comprehensive reform.\u201d<\/p>\n As Schumer works with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) on legislation to federally legalize cannabis, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said recently that he\u00a0plans to reintroduce his reform bill<\/a>, the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, which cleared the chamber last year but did not advance in the Senate under GOP control.<\/p>\n Texas House Approves Bills To Expand Medical Marijuana Program And Reduce Penalties For Concentrates<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Key Senate Chair Shifts Stance On Tying Marijuana Banking Bill To Sentencing Reform<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the fate of marijuana banking legislation in the Senate, there are more questions than answers at this stage, with the chairman of a key committee walking back his insistence that the bill to be tied to sentencing reform. Nonetheless, the senator is saying he\u2019s still inContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47374"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47375,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47374\/revisions\/47375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Key Senate Chair Shifts Stance On Tying Marijuana Banking Bill To Sentencing Reform<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"