Congressional Committee Again Blocks Amendments To Prevent Marijuana Testing Of Federal Job Applicants

A key House committee has rejected another pair of marijuana amendments from floor consideration as part of large-scale spending bills, this time blocking the proposals that would have prevented the covered agencies from using their funds to test federal job applicants for cannabis.

The House Rules Committee on Monday declined to make in order the marijuana measures as part of 2025 appropriations legislation for the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies and Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) sponsored the amendments, as he’s done with numerous prior proposals he’s filed to spending bills over the past year. The committee has consistently prevented them from advancing to the floor, however.

Here’s the text of the proposals the panel rejected: 

SEC. __ None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to test an applicant for marijuana (as defined in section 102(16)(A) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802(16)(A)), except for positions listed as Presumptive Testing Designated Positions by the Selection of Testing Designated Positions Guidance under Federal Drug-Free Workplace Program established pursuant to Executive Order 12564, in—

(1) any of the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin; or

(2) the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands of the United States, or Guam.

The Rules Committee last month rejected multiple marijuana-related amendments to a series of spending bills, including three of Garcia’s proposals to ban certain federal agencies from testing job applicants for cannabis and another to prevent border patrol agents from seizing marijuana from state-licensed businesses.

The same committee did allow amendments to another spending bill to go to the floor that would authorize U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to issue medical marijuana recommendations to military veterans and support psychedelics research and access. Those proposals passed the full House last month as part of appropriations legislation covering Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies (MilConVA).

On the Senate side, the Appropriations Committee also approved a spending bill with a new amendment allowing doctors at VA to discuss and recommend medical marijuana to patients living in legal states.

Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee was also scheduled on Monday to take up appropriations bills covering Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) and Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies (Ag/FDA), with another set of cannabis-related amendments for members to consider. But they were pulled from the agenda amid disagreement about unrelated provisions.

One amendment for the FSGG legislation, sponsored by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D-DC), would end the federal ban that’s long prevented D.C. from using its local tax dollars to implement a system allowing for adult-use marijuana sales.

The rider enforcing the current restriction, sponsored by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), has been in place since 2014. It was initially omitted from the base FSGG measure, but it was later added back in as part of a GOP en bloc amendment in the Appropriations Committee.

Another pair of amendments filed for the Ag/FDA bill would strike a contentious provision that would effectively ban most consumable hemp products. One of the amendments is led by Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-KY), while the other is sponsored by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). Each proposal is cosponsored by several other members.

Hemp industry stakeholders have rallied against the proposal, which was included in the base bill from the relevant subcommittee last month. It’s virtually identical to a provision of the 2024 Farm Bill that was attached by a separate committee in May via an amendment from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL).

Another Ag/FDA amendment filed by McGarvey would reaffirm the authority of states to set their own regulations for hemp and its derivatives.

Garcia filed his federal job applicant marijuana testing amendments to both bills as well.

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A report attached to the Ag/FDA spending bill also discusses the committee’s worries about unregulated cannabis products, including those for which a business is making unsanctioned claims about therapeutic potential. It wants FDA to “continue and increase” efforts to take enforcement actions against bad actors in the hemp space.

Meanwhile, bipartisan lawmakers have filed proposed amendments to the spending bill for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) that would remove a section barring DOJ from using its fund to reschedule or deschedule marijuana, as the Biden administration is actively pursuing.

GOP senators have separately tried to block the administration from rescheduling cannabis as part of a standalone bill filed last September, but that proposal has not received a hearing or vote. All of this comes as the public comment deadline on the DOJ’s proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is set to close next week.

Garcia also introduced an amendment to the CJS legislation that would block the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere in any state or local laws “authorizing the use, distribution, sale, possession, research, or cultivation of medical psilocybin.”

Senators Push VA To Create Medical Marijuana ‘Standard Of Care’ As Rescheduling Process Finishes

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.