A newly filed large-scale spending bill to keep the government funded for the 2022 Fiscal Year does not include language to protect banks that work with state-legal marijuana dispensaries—and the sponsor of the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act would like to know why. In a lighthearted exchange in the House Rules Committee early Wednesday morning when the panel was discussing the omnibus spending package, Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) said with a smile, “I appreciate this bill. I hope the next one has SAFE Banking in it.” “You mean it isn’t in it?” Chairman Jim McGovern (D-MA) jokingly asked. “No, it’s not,” Perlmutter replied. House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) chimed in so say, “I don’t know how we missed it, Ed.” It’s far from the first time that Perlmutter has made a point to talk about enacting cannabis reform legislation during committee hearings on ostensibly unrelated or wider-ranging legislation. At a hearing on a postal service reform bill before the panel last month, he said worker shortages could be partly resolved by ending federal cannabis prohibition, telling his colleagues to “kind of keep that in the back of the mind.”Also last month in a separate Rules Committee hearing, the congressman stressed that he’s planning to offer the SAFE Banking Act as an amendment to “every single bill I possibly can until it’s passed,” and he acknowledged that his colleagues are probably “becoming all too familiar with” the legislation in light of his repeated advocacy for it.
Kyle Jaeger, Marijuana Moment, 03/09/2022 11:24:00