House Financial Services Committee Communications:
Referenced During CFIG Policy Update
Cannabis News of Note for the Week:
Fox Business: Tim Scott introduces Senate bill to address debanking over ‘reputational risk’ (For a one-pager on the bill, click here. For bill text, click here.)
CRB Monitor News: Ohio Becomes a Top SAR State After Launching Adult-Use
Politico Pro Cannabis: Committee hears bill to address illegal cannabis grows on federal lands (paywalled, full text below)
Cannabis Reports of Note for the Week:
New York Cannabis Accounting & Tax Guide: Regulations, 280E & Compliance [2025]
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Politico Pro: Committee hears bill to address illegal cannabis grows on federal lands
By: Natalie Fertig | 03/07/2025 02:54 PM EST
A bill that seeks to address trash and pollution created by illegal cannabis grows on federal lands is having a hearing on Tuesday in the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Lands.
Illegal cannabis grow on federal lands are just one focus of the larger bill under consideration, which also sets out to increase border security and tackle environmental destruction on federal lands along the southern border. The bill was introduced by Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.).
The details: The bill would require the Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior to report the amount of waste collected at sites where undocumented immigrants are housed or illegally camping, or where cannabis and other drugs are being cultivated by people without legal immigration status.
The bill would also increase the maximum federal penalties for undocumented immigrants who illegally grow cannabis. If it passes, violators will be subject to up to $250,000 in fines or up to 20 years imprisonment.
It would also authorize more than $16 million for cleanup of federal lands through the Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior over six years.
“The goals of each initiative shall include the detection, identification, assessment, investigation, monitoring, and development of solutions to, and response to, contamination resulting from the cultivation of cannabis by trespassers on land under the jurisdiction of the Secretary concerned,” the bill states.
The hearing will be held Tuesday, March 11, at 10:15 a.m. in Longworth room 1324.
The context: Other bills have been proposed on Capitol Hill to allocate funding for illegal grow cleanups on federal lands in past years, but the inclusion of such language in an immigration and border security-focused environmental package is new.
Illegal cannabis cultivation on federal lands has long been a problem, with the U.S. Forest Service telling POLITICO during the pandemic that funding had always been scarce to deal with the cleanup. As much as 70 percent of the illegally grown weed in California is harvested on protected federal land, according to the Cannabis Removal on Public Lands Project.