Shuttered for a sixth time after being stripped from the America COMPETES Act of 2022, the House sponsor of a bipartisan cannabis banking reform bill that would enable cannabis businesses to have better access to traditional banking services isn’t giving up.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter, the U.S. representative for Colorado’s 7th congressional district, has filed the SAFE Banking Act as an amendment to the national defense budget bill for the fiscal year 2023. This marks the second consecutive year that the pro-cannabis congressman has pursued cannabis banking policy change through essential defense appropriations legislation. Perhaps this time, the legislation will experience a more favorable outcome.
Back in November 2021, the SAFE Banking Act was initially attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the first time. The NDAA’s purpose is to authorize appropriations for military activities of the Department of Defense and for military construction, as well as to prescribe military personnel strengths and for various purposes. Annual ratification of the NDAA is practically guaranteed in political terms, having passed each year for the past fifty. And although not an exact ideological match in terms of suitability, the illegal cultivation and sales of cannabis is a bona fide national security threat through its association with cross-border trafficking.
As a reminder, SAFE Banking generally prohibits a federal banking regulator from penalizing a depository institution for providing banking services to a legitimate cannabis-related business. The language restricts the termination or limiting of deposit insurance or share insurance of a depository institution solely because the institution provides financial services to a legitimate cannabis-related business.
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