Marijuana Moment — House And Senate Marijuana Banking Sponsors Discuss Path Ahead While Legalization Debate Looms
By Kyle Jaeger
House and Senate sponsors of legislation to protect financial institutions that service state-legal cannabis businesses discussed the strategy moving forward during a virtual event hosted by the U.S. Hemp Roundtable on Tuesday. Overall, there was recognition that Senate leadership might face obstacles in pushing for a broad reform package they are preparing as incremental banking legislation advances.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), sponsor of the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, stressed that “the cannabis industry generates a lot of cash, and we want to get that cash really off the streets because it attracts crime—murders, robberies, assault and batteries [as well as] white collar crimes of skimming and fraud generally.”
He made similar comments in an interview with Marijuana Moment last week.
However, the congressman recognized that “there’s been some hesitation on some Democrats’ part in the Senate, wanting to do a much bigger piece of legislation that decriminalizes, deschedules, has criminal justice reform components, a taxation component to it.”
“I’m all for that,” Perlmutter said. “But, quite frankly, the Senate hasn’t taken any action with respect to cannabis since 1971.”
The congressman said flatly that he doesn’t believe legislation that’s being crafted by Senate leadership to legalize marijuana has the votes to pass at this point. And in the interim, advancing cannabis banking reform could serve a public safety interest while helping to stabilize industries that continue to evolve across the country.
One of the senators pushing to advance comprehensive legalization is Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR). He also spoke at Tuesday’s Hemp Roundtable event and touted the work he’s been able to accomplish alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) to put forward broad reform while still supporting legislation to enact a policy change on cannabis banking.
“Let’s just make sure that this conversation is in the ‘to be continued’ department because these issues are hugely important to agriculture, are hugely important to rural communities, and I think we’re on the right side of history and we’ve just got to keep prosecuting the case for policies that keep up with the times,” Wyden told the hemp stakeholders at Tuesday’s meeting.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the chief sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act in his chamber, also discussed next steps for marijuana reform this Congress. With respect to banking, he said that he hoped to see the Senate ultimately accept a provision to House-passed defense spending legislation to protect banks that work with state-legal cannabis businesses.
“I’m hoping we can have similar success in the Senate,” he said, referring to the House’s move to attach cannabis banking to the National Defense Authorization Act. “This is a moment. The House has acted once again to push for this to be successfully passed in the counterpart in the Senate, or to get it done in conference with the House language.”
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