A coalition of more than two dozen congressional Democrats have filed a bill on promoting workplace investment to combat climate change, and they want to boost the workforce nationwide by protecting people in legal marijuana states from being penalized due to federal drug testing policies. The Climate Resilience Workforce Act, which is being led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), is a wide-ranging bill that would provide grants to support climate resilience jobs, fund existing workforce development programs and create a White House Office of Climate Resilience to facilitate climate protection work. But another keystone of the legislation is to remove barriers to workforce entry, in part by removing federal drug testing restrictions. For those employed in a state that has legalized marijuana, they could not be denied job training opportunities made available under the bill or denied work in climate resilience “on the basis of a federally mandated drug test that is more stringent than any drug test that is in place in the locality or State, or used by the union of such employee,” the text of the bill says. If a state or locality does permit for testing THC metabolites despite having legalization on the books, it seems those workers or job training applications could still be subject to the more stringent federal guidelines. But for those in states like New York, which enacted rules banning such cannabis testing for most workers, they would be protected.
Kyle Jaeger, Marijuana Moment, 01/31/2022 13:39:00