The Senate Banking Committee adopted an amendment to the cannabis banking bill that was amended in multiple ways, according text obtained by Marijuana Moment. This text has not been posted yet by the committee but was obtained during Wednesday’s marking up.
The committee approved Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) amendment as the discussion began. It was described by members of both parties as a mixture of technical revisions and changes. The document touches on a number of topics, including federal guidance for banks serving cannabis industry clients and rephrased protections to financial institutions.
The committee’s amendment to the marijuana banking bill
Treasury Secretary would have one year instead of 180 to update the guidance for financial institutions who work with cannabis businesses, which was released by Obama’s administration in 2014. This guidance mandates that banks, credit unions, and depository institutions submit Suspicious Activities Reports (SARs), if they provide services to the cannabis industry.
The bill has been amended to reflect technical changes in the language regarding marijuana-related transactions not being considered “proceeds of an illegal activity”.
A new section has been added that stipulates the director of Financial Crimes Enforcement Network must give testimony to Congress within one year of the bill’s enactment about anti-money laundering measures.
Federal home loan banks have been added to a list that protects financial institutions from federal regulators for simply working with cannabis businesses in states where it is legal.
The language relating to the federally required report “availability to financial services for minorities, veterans, women, Tribal communities, small State-sanctioned cannabis businesses, and small State owned marijuana businesses” was also rewritten.
The focus of most of the negotiations has been Section 10 of Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act (SAFER), which prohibits federal regulators from discriminating enforcement actions against any industry — language favored by Republicans.
This section was modified in several ways. A key change, which seems to respond to concerns raised by Sen. Kevin Cramer(R-ND), would be to strike a section that would have allowed regulators to request or impose sanctions for a “reason determined to be valid at the discretion of the Agency.”
This section has been revised to include companies owned by Chinese and Russian government agents in the list of “potential national security and illicit financial threats” that could warrant suspicion from regulators.
The SAFER Banking Act, as it was introduced last week, contained a new sub-section that would have mandated financial institutions to develop rules or guidelines on how to increase access to banking services by rural communities and low- or medium-income tribal communities. This language was changed by Brown’s amendment.
SAFER Banking Act: Next steps
Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (DNY) has promised to bring the cannabis bank bill to the floor as quickly as possible. He’s also committed to attaching legislation that will encourage state and local cannabis expunctions and gun rights for marijuana users.
However, it’s clear that the lawmakers will seek to make further revisions once the bill reaches the House and possibly the Senate.
Rep. Blaetkemeyer, R-MO, of the House Financial Services Committee, where the bill is likely to be referred after its passage in the Senate, , told Punchbowl News that Section 10 even with the amendments still allows “a wide discretion” for banking supervisors, which could allow discrimination based on political motivation.
He said that the SAFER Banking Act would not pass the House in its current form.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-IA), sent a letter on Thursday to Schumer to express his concern over the Senate’s “ongoing priority of legislation relaxing marijuana laws” in favor of a separate measure that the GOP senator prefers to permanently ban fentanyl analogs.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, is also stirring up the pot about the cannabis banking legislation. He has a distorted interpretation of Schumer’s remarks on the floor Thursday regarding his plan to amend the bill with “criminal Justice provisions.”
Cotton stated that while Schumer only mentioned amending the bill in order to include gun rights and expungements, the majority leader would like to add provisions “letting drugs traffickers out of jail.”
Additionally, Sens. Pete Ricketts, John Cornyn, Ted Budd and James Lankford sent a letter on Tuesday to the Senate leadership arguing that the SAFER Banking Act will result in cannabis products with higher potency that are harmful to children and would compromise the integrity of “the United States banking system.”
Raphael Warnock, a member of the Banking Committee (D-GA), has been pushing for provisions that will strengthen the social equity provisions in the bill. After his amendments were rejected in the markup of the Banking Committee, he became the only Democrat to vote against the legislation.
A bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from 22 states is calling on Congress to also pass the Cannabis Banking Reform.
Below, you can read the text that the Brown amendment to SAFER Banking Act was adopted by the committee:
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The first time Marijuana Moment published the post This is how the Marijuana Banking Bill was amended during this week’s Senate Committee Markup.
