Cannabis News of Note:

Wall Street Journal: White House Preps Order to Punish Banks That Discriminate Against Conservatives (paywalled, full text below)

The White House: Executive Order: GUARANTEEING FAIR BANKING FOR ALL AMERICANS

Cannabis Wire: New York regulators pause seed-to-sale deadline amid Metrc/BioTrack deal(paywalled newsletter, text below)

Marijuana Moment: Rand Paul Is Working To ‘Reach A Compromise’ On Hemp THC Product Laws With McConnell And House Lawmakers

Marijuana Moment: Texas Officials Take Key Step To Expand Medical Marijuana Program As Hemp Ban Bill Stalls

 

Cannabis Reports of Note:

CRB Monitor Securities Update | Q2 2025

Rockefeller Institute of Government: Adult-Use Marijuana Legalization to Sales: Three Factors that Impact Speed of Implementation

DEA Releases New Data On Marijuana Enforcement, Tracking ‘Chinese Grows’ For The First Time

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WSJ: White House Preps Order to Punish Banks That Discriminate Against Conservatives

President is expected to sign executive order as soon as this week that targets debanking of businesses including crypto companies

By Dylan Tokar and Alexander Saeedy

Updated Aug. 5, 2025 9:57 am ET

The White House is preparing to step up pressure against big banks over perceived discrimination against conservatives and crypto companies with an executive order that threatens to fine lenders that drop customers for political reasons.

A draft of the executive order, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, directs bank regulators to investigate whether any financial institutions might have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws or consumer financial-protection laws.

Violators could be subject to monetary penalties, consent decrees or other disciplinary measures, according to the draft.

The order could be signed as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter. It is possible the order could get delayed or that the administration’s plans will change.

The draft order doesn’t name any specific banks but appears to refer to an instance where Bank of America was accused of shutting down the accounts of a Christian organization operating in Uganda based on the organization’s religious beliefs. The bank has said it closed the accounts because it doesn’t serve small businesses operating outside the U.S.

The draft order also criticizes the role that some banks played in an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol.

When asked about the Journal’s report on the draft order in a CNBC interview Tuesday, President Trump recounted his own experiences being dropped as a bank customer, including at JPMorgan Chase.

“The banks discriminated against me very badly, and I was very good to the banks,” Trump said.

A JPMorgan spokeswoman said that the bank doesn’t close accounts for political reasons and that it agreed with Trump that regulatory change is needed.

Banks have been on edge about potential action by the Trump administration. The Journal reported in June that the administration was considering an executive order.

Conservatives for years have accused banks of denying them services on political or religious grounds, and cryptocurrency companies have said they were shut out of banking services under the Biden administration.

Banks, for their part, have said their decisions are driven by legal, regulatory or financial risks, including those stemming from the U.S.’s antimoney-laundering laws. They have blamed regulatory pressure for prior decisions to largely steer clear of the crypto industry.

A Bank of America spokesman said the bank welcomed the administration’s efforts to provide regulatory clarity. “We’ve provided detailed proposals and will continue to work with the administration and Congress to improve the regulatory framework,” he said.

Over the past several months, banks have moved to head off action by the federal government, meeting with Republican attorneys general and updating their policies to clearly state they don’t discriminate on the basis of political affiliation.

The draft of the order viewed by the Journal directs regulators to strike any policies they have that might have contributed to banks dropping certain customers. It also directs the Small Business Administration to initiate a review of banks where the agency guarantee loans.

Under Trump, banking regulators have said they would stop assessing banks for what is called the reputational risk posed by their customers—a practice that banks have cited for their decisions to avoid certain customers or industries.

The draft order also calls for regulators to refer potential violations to the attorney general in some cases. The Justice Department in April said it was launching a task force in Virginia, to examine allegations of banks refusing customers access to credit or other services based on “impermissible factors.”

Corrections & Amplifications
The Small Business Administration guarantees loans at banks under its lending programs. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said banks guarantee the agency’s loans.(Corrected on Aug. 5)

Cannabis Wire (Newsletter, Aug. 8): New York regulators pause seed-to-sale deadline amid Metrc/BioTrack deal.

As Cannabis Wire reported in this newsletter earlier this week, Metrc announced that it has formed a “strategic partnership” with BioTrack through which a newly-created entity called BT Government, Inc. will “manage BioTrack’s government-facing operations and will operate independently from Metrc and BioTrack.”

On the heels of that announcement, cannabis regulators in New York, which has a contract with BioTrack, told licensees that the deadlines by which licensees must integrate with BioTrack no longer apply.

August 1 was the deadline for growers, microbusinesses, ROs, and labs; Sept. 1 was the deadline for processors and distributors, and Oct. 1 was the deadline for shops.

“OCM must evaluate systems implications for both the agency and licensees and determine the extent to which this development affects STS integration in New York. To make a full assessment, OCM is temporarily suspending the deadline by which cultivators and other licensees must integrate,” OCM wrote in a bulletin.

In other words, there is still no centralized seed-to-sale system for tracking legal cannabis in New York, years after adult use sales went live.

This creates vulnerability at a time when there are rampant concerns about inversion of unregulated, out-of-state products into the state’s licensed industry, as Cannabis Wire has reported.

“OCM knows the critical importance of New York having a STS system in order to protect the integrity of the State’s cannabis industry. The agency is actively working with the vendor and is committed to keeping the schedule as close as possible to the original integration timeline,” OCM continued, adding that it expects to have more information “in the coming weeks.”

+ More: The new entity, BT Government, Inc., will be led by BioTrack COO Moe Afaneh.

The announcement notes that each company will “focus on its core strengths,” which will be “commercial cannabis solutions,” like point-of-sale, for BioTrack, and “regulatory technology to state partners” for Metrc.