Punchbowl News reported on Thursday that the bipartisan congressional members have concluded that the Marijuana Banking Legislation will not be part of the final version of the United States Innovation and Competition (COMPETES ) Act. Even though the US House of Representatives formally attached the SAFE Banking Act as an amendment to the large-scale legislation in innovation and manufacturing in February this year, the final version of the legislation did not include the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Act.
Many the cannabis industry experts believed that the SAFE Banking Act (an Act that strives to protect financial institutions that wish to provide services to legal marijuana businesses) had a better chance of being passed in the Senate than the MORE Act, which aims to remove cannabis from the controlled substances list, allowing states to legalize its production and sale from federal interference. However, the Senate again failed to endorse the bill, turning it down for the sixth time.
The House had previously advanced the cannabis banking measure more than six times. This is either as a standalone legislation or an amendment. The last time it passed as a standalone measure was in April 2021 in a vote that ended as 321-101. In 2019, the House approved the language of the SAFE Banking Act as a standalone cannabis policy reform. It also got two approvals as part of the pandemic relief. The Senate later rejected the bill.
The congressman who sponsored the legislation, Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), commented on the recent exclusion of the SAFE Act from the COMPETES Act.
He said, “The Senate continues to ignore the public safety risk of forcing businesses to deal in all cash. In the wake of the Senate’s inaction, people continue to be killed, businesses continue to be robbed, and employees and business owners in the cannabis industry continue to be excluded from the financial system. I will continue to push SAFE Banking to be included in COMPETES, other legislative vehicles, or for the Senate to finally take up the standalone version of the bill, which has been sitting in the Senate for three and a half years.”
Featured Image: Megapixl © Kuzma
