Cannabis News of Note for the Week:
Politico Pro Cannabis: Where does weed stand on Capitol Hill? Summer break edition. (paywalled, full text below)
Politico Pro Cannabis (8/2): Brown Pushing Schumer on Weed Banking (paywalled newsletter, text below)
Green Market Report: Senators say they want safe banking for cannabis, but take no action
Cannabis Reports of Note for the Week:
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Politico: Where does weed stand on Capitol Hill? Summer break edition.
Cannabis banking legislation and potential changes to the definition of hemp are unlikely to be taken up before the November elections.
By: Natalie Fertig | 07/31/2024 05:00 AM EDT
Time is running out for federal lawmakers to pass any substantial cannabis legislation this year.
The House is out for the rest of the summer, and the Senate will leave after this week. When lawmakers return in September, they’ll have just a few contentious weeks before heading back to their districts to campaign ahead of November’s elections.
That means this Congress has less than three months of legislating left, and a lot of cannabis-related legislation still hanging in the balance. Here’s what we are watching and what the outlook is for weed bills.
Cannabis banking: The cannabis banking bill got a facelift last year and drama ensued over changes to a key section that provides protections for businesses that attract political scrutiny. Negotiations over those changes have pushed the bill’s timeline back repeatedly, and it’s now looking like the only chance Congress will have to get to the bill will be during the lame duck session after the November election — if at all.
The cannabis banking bill is one of many priorities that have been shunted further down the calendar all year by a divided Congress that has not accomplished much, and all of those bills will be competing for limited time in the final month and a half of the session.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been saying for years that this bill is a priority and the support of Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) — the lead GOP sponsor and current chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — has always increased the chances of a deal getting made. But it’s possible the Senate uses their limited time to pass something that has a better chance of passing the House, which has shown little interest in addressing the cannabis banking issue.
Or to pass …
The farm bill: Congress is likely to pass either a farm bill extension or negotiate a new package in the lame duck session, our colleagues on the POLITICO Agriculture team report. Senate Democrats have yet to release their version of the farm bill, but it’s unlikely to contain the hemp amendment that was approved by the House Agriculture Committee in May. That amendment would change the definition of hemp in an effort to make intoxicating hemp products federally illegal, which hemp advocates have warned that it would decimate the industry.
Ag Committee Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) told POLITICO earlier this month that he’d be “ready to go” on a September farm bill vote, but one GOP aide predicted there “will be no farm bill this year and even the extension of the current law will be contentious.”
Appropriations: The House and Senate have added some cannabis-related provisions to their appropriations bills, including language pushing for more research on a drugged driving test and a report on the Department of Health and Human Services’ cannabis review process. But cannabis-related provisions have gotten stripped out of funding bills year after year in the reconciliation process.
One major funding provision to watch is language added to the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) regarding the increase in Chinese links to the legal and illegal cannabis industries. If passed, it would require the State and Treasury departments to provide the Senate and House intelligence committees with the information they have about Chinese nationals “involved in marijuana grows and money laundering operations” in the U.S. — and to share that information with other relevant agencies.
But funding legislation is in limbo, POLITICO’s Caitlin Emma reports, after the House left town early without passing most of their funding bills due to internal disputes among Republicans. Lawmakers are expected to pass a continuing resolution in September to avert a government shutdown, with budget negotiations expected to pick up again after the elections.
So what will we see: The biggest changes in cannabis policy this year, however, are more likely to come from the Biden administration, not Congress. Most notably, the DEA’s final rule on rescheduling — moving marijuana to Schedule III on the Controlled Substances Act — could drop before the year’s end.
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Politico Pro Cannabis (8/2): BROWN PUSHING SCHUMER ON WEED BANKING
Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told POLITICO’s Eleanor Mueller on Thursday that he is pushing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to hold a vote on cannabis banking legislation later this year. The bill could be paired with legislation to increase accountability over bank executives.
Brown added that there is “limited floor time, and that’s always a challenge.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), meanwhile, said that she supports pairing the cannabis bill with the bank accountability legislation.
The Senate left Thursday and is out until Sept. 9.