Bipartisan Cannabis Banking Bill by Year End !!!
Former Marijuana Regulators Call For 10 Equity Amendments To Bipartisan Cannabis Banking Bill
With the end of the current Congress approaching, efforts to find areas of compromise on marijuana reform are increasing—with lawmakers, advocates and stakeholders increasingly willing to set aside policy differences in the interest of getting something enacted before January.
The internal debate among reform supporters has long come down to the idea of incremental versus comprehensive, and the bipartisan Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking (SAFE) Banking Act is generally considered to represent the former side of the legislative spectrum as an achievable yet not particularly transformative change.
But while the standalone bill has faced criticism from certain equity-focused advocates and lawmakers, a new paper from the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC) is one of the latest examples of how the reform conversation has evolved, with the group laying out a series of recommended amendments to the banking bill that they hope will bridge legislative divides.
CRCC’s paper, published by the Ohio State University (OSU) Moritz College of Law, is titled “Not a SAFE Bet: Equitable Access to Cannabis Banking, An Analysis of the SAFE Banking Act.”
It details the main components of the banking legislation—which has passed the House in some form seven times now but continues to stall in the Senate—and proposes several changes that the former regulators say would sharpen its equity impacts and help make the bill more acceptable to those who’ve insisted that sweeping justice-focused legalization must be prioritized ahead of modest financial reform.
For example, CRCC is calling for amendments to require financial institutions to prove compliance with anti-discrimination laws in order to receive the marijuana-specific protections offered under SAFE, require financial regulators to develop best practices to “achieve racial equity” in their services and expand federal study and reporting requirements to more holistically cover financial barriers faced by women-, minority- and equity-owned cannabis businesses.
“Without additional legislative amendments to directly address challenges related to fair and equitable access to financial services, small and minority-owned cannabis businesses that currently have inadequate access to banking services or loans are likely to continue to be denied the full breadth and depth of services offered to others,” the paper argues.
This analysis comes at a key time in the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and colleagues recently filed a long-awaited legalization bill. For months, the sponsors have been adamant about the need to prioritize passing the wide-ranging legislation first.
But in the weeks since the bill’s filing, the rhetoric has quickly shifted, with Schumer, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and other key players now emphasizing their willingness to compromise as the leader holds talks with bicameral, bipartisan offices about a possible package of modest marijuana reforms, including a cannabis banking fix, that may come following the midterm elections. The yet-to-be-filed legislation is being referred to as “SAFE Banking Plus.”
