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Eight U.S. senators are urging committee leadership to extend access to federal Small Business Administration (SBA) programs and services to the state-legal marijuana industry.<\/p>\n
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) led a letter to the chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), asking that they include language in future spending legislation that enables SBA access for cannabis businesses.<\/p>\n
The letter specifically asks appropriators to prohibit SBA from denying applications for four loan programs for \u201clegally operating cannabis small businesses in states that have legalized cannabis sale and use.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further, the lawmakers requested that committee leaders \u201cinclude bill language prohibiting SBA from excluding such state-legal cannabis businesses from participating in or benefiting from SBA\u2019s entrepreneurial development programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosen led a similar letter last year<\/a>, though the requested language was not ultimately adopted as part of the Fiscal Year 2023 final appropriations package for FSGG. Senators are hoping for a different result for FY 2024 this session.<\/p>\n The letter, which was sent in late March and highlighted in a press release from Rosen\u2019s office last week, was also signed by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Ed Markey (D-MA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, most banks are reluctant to serve even state-legal cannabis businesses due to conflicts with federal law, meaning that these legally operating small businesses often are forced to operate using only cash, potentially jeopardizing public safety in order to do business,\u201d the senators wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cSBA loan programs would be especially helpful to cannabis small businesses because they would fill gaps left by the private sector and could expand the availability of capital for many entrepreneurs\u2014including for our minority, women, and veteran business owners. Likewise, SBA\u2019s entrepreneurial development programs provide critical training, counseling, and technical assistance to small businesses across the country\u2014resources desperately needed by entrepreneurs in the new and burgeoning state-legal cannabis industry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAccess to SBA loan and entrepreneurship programs would support a rapidly growing industry that creates jobs, supports small businesses, and raise revenues in states that have chosen to legalize cannabis,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n In a press release about this and two other letters she led that were unrelated to marijuana, Rosen emphasized that small businesses \u201cpower our communities and are key pillars of Nevada\u2019s local economy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m urging my colleagues to appropriate all adequate resources for Nevada\u2019s small businesses to thrive, particularly businesses in our rural communities, those helping to expand access to child care, and legal cannabis small businesses that deserve equal access to capital,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cWe must always take action to see that these small businesses have the support they need to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n The cannabis letter is one example of how congressional lawmakers are working to normalize financial services for the cash-intensive industry. As the senators wrote, marijuana companies remain largely locked out of simple banking services under prohibition, let alone federally backed loans.<\/p>\n But plans are in the works to resolve that issue, starting with a Senate Banking Committee hearing that was scheduled<\/a> for this Thursday where members will discuss the recently refiled Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act.<\/p>\n Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said during a cannabis rally in New York City<\/a> on Saturday that, after the legislation moves out of committee, he will bring it to the floor and attach social equity provisions, including expungements for people with prior marijuana convictions.<\/p>\n \u2014 Last year, it was rumored that SBA-specific language might also be folded into a so-called SAFE Plus package of marijuana reform bills that Schumer had worked on. But that didn\u2019t materialize.<\/p>\n Senators on both sides of the aisle\u00a0have been pushing for urgent action<\/a> on the standalone measure this session.<\/p>\n The SAFE Banking Act would protect banks that work with state-legal cannabis businesses from being penalized by federal regulators. The latest version has been\u00a0amended in several ways that have encouraged advocates<\/a>, but as Schumer explained, the plan is to further revise it on the floor to incorporate additional equity provisions.<\/p>\n The bill is considered one of the more passable pieces of cannabis legislation this session with Republicans in control of the House. A former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)\u00a0recently wrote an op-ed for Marijuana Moment<\/a>\u00a0explaining how the new political dynamics could actually bolster the bill\u2019s prospects of passage this year.<\/p>\n Schumer has emphasized his commitment to advancing the marijuana banking legislation with criminal justice provisions included, calling the broader effort to repair the harms of the drug war\u00a0a \u201cmoral responsibility\u201d for Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n A vote in the Senate last month on separate marijuana legislation, however, has raised some questions about whether any modest cannabis reform is achievable under the current congressional makeup. Senate Republicans\u00a0blocked a procedural motion to advance a bipartisan bill<\/a>\u00a0to simply require studies into the medical potential of cannabis for military veterans with chronic pain and PTSD.<\/p>\n The standalone SAFE Banking Act has been approved along largely bipartisan lines in the House in some form several times in recent years. But it\u2019s consistently stalled out in the Senate under both Democratic and Republican leadership.<\/p>\n Schumer has been\u00a0holding meetings with Democratic<\/a>\u00a0and Republican members<\/a>\u00a0in the early months of the new Congress to discuss cannabis reform proposals that might have bipartisan buy-in this year.<\/p>\n For his part, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said recently that lawmakers are\u00a0working to \u201cresurrect\u201d the cannabis reform package<\/a>, acknowledging that failure to advance a banking fix for the industry \u201cliterally means that hundreds of businesses go out of business.<\/p>\n Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who is sponsoring the House version of the SAFE Banking Act, said at a recent press briefing that thinks it\u2019s important that advocates and lawmakers align on any incremental proposals to end the drug war,\u00a0warning against an \u201call-or-nothing\u201d mentality<\/a>.<\/p>\n Numerous cannabis bills have been filed in Congress in recent weeks beside the banking legislation.<\/p>\n For example, bipartisan congressional lawmakers filed a bill to mandate the automatic sealing of criminal records for\u00a0certain non-violent federal marijuana convictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n House and Senate lawmakers also reintroduced legislation last month to\u00a0provide a safe harbor to insurance companies<\/a>\u00a0that work with licensed marijuana businesses.<\/p>\n Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) introduced legislation last month to\u00a0protect the Second Amendment rights of people who use marijuana<\/a>\u00a0in legal states, allowing them to purchase and possess firearms that they\u2019re currently prohibited from having under federal law.<\/p>\n Reps. Dave Joyce (R-OH) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have filed a bill to\u00a0incentive state and local marijuana expungements<\/a>\u00a0with a federal grant program.<\/p>\n Also last month, Joyce and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) filed a measure designed to\u00a0prepare the federal government for marijuana legalization<\/a>, directing the attorney general to form a commission to study and make recommendations about regulating cannabis in a way similar to alcohol.<\/p>\n Border Patrol Agents\u2014And Their Family Members\u2014Warned To Just \u2018Say No To CBD\u2019 Due To Concerns About Unregulated Products<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of WeedPornDaily<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Senators Push For Marijuana Industry Access To Federal Small Business Loans And Services<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Eight U.S. senators are urging committee leadership to extend access to federal Small Business Administration (SBA) programs and services to the state-legal marijuana industry. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) led a letter to the chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), askingContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":64784,"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\/64783"}],"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=64783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64785,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64783\/revisions\/64785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Senators Push For Marijuana Industry Access To Federal Small Business Loans And Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"