A bipartisan duo of Colorado and Ohio attorneys general recently sent a letter to U.S. Senate leadership, imploring the passage of a bipartisan bill to protect banks that work with state-legal marijuana businesses. The Senate has faced significant pressure to approve the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which has cleared the House in some form in six times at this point. Now Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser (D) and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) are again adding their voices to the chorus, sending a letter to leaders of the Senate that underscores the urgent need to provide a federal fix to the banking issue for the cannabis industry. The top state prosecutors, who serve as co-chairs of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Federalism Committee, said in the letter last week that “states and federal government share a strong and common interest in protecting public safety and bringing grey market financial activities into the regulated banking sector.” “To address these vital goals, we yet again urge the Senate to bring the SAFE Banking Act to the Senate floor for a vote as soon as possible,” they wrote. The legislation from Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) would prevent financial institutions from being penalized by federal regulators for servicing state-legal marijuana businesses. One path to enactment could be a separate, large-scale manufacturing bill that’s being negotiated by appointed conferees from both chambers before it’s sent to the president’s desk. To that end, the third-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate will be among the conferees pushing for the inclusion of SAFE Banking in the America COMPETES Act. In the new letter, the attorneys general wrote that they “urge the Senate to advance the SAFE Banking Act or similar legislation to provide a safe harbor for depository institutions that provide a financial product or service to a covered business in a state that has implemented laws and regulations that ensure accountability in the marijuana industry.”
Kyle Jaeger, Marijuana Moment, 04/21/2022 15:40:00