Democratic Senator Unsuccessfully Attempts To Add Marijuana Banking Bill Provision To Financial Regulations Proposal

A Democratic senator unsuccessfully attempted to attach a key provision of a marijuana banking bill—but not one that would’ve actually helped the cannabis industry access financial services—to a broader bill focused on the problem of debanking.

At a Senate Banking Committee markup on Thursday, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) filed an amendment to incorporate Section 10 of the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act to the underlying Financial Integrity and Regulation Management (FIRM) Act that the panel was considering.

The crux of the SAFER Banking Act is to prohibit federal regulators from penalizing financial institutions for simply working with the cannabis industry. But Section 10 would not on its own achieve that; rather, it broadly aims to prevent banking regulators from targeting certain controversial businesses such as those in the firearm industry.

The amendment “would place guardrails around the regulators’ use of reputational risk, without eliminating the concept entirely,” Reed said, adding that the measure “prevents debanking in a responsible way.”

Watch the discussion on the SAFER Banking Act amendment, starting around 3:00:58 into the video below:

The proposal failed in a party-line vote of 13-11. But for advocates and stakeholders, there’s greater disappointment that neither Reed nor any other member of the committee from either party sought to incorporate the full cannabis banking bill into the FIRM Act, especially given recent discussions about its relevancy to the debanking issue.

“While I’m disappointed no one offered a SAFE Banking amendment to this very germane legislation, I’m equally disappointed in the industry advocates that didn’t make it happen,” Don Murphy, co-founder of the American Cannabis Collective, told Marijuana Moment. “Why weren’t they in the room?”

Dozens and dozens of amendments offered by @SenateDems to the Stablecoin bill and none on #SAFEBanking. I don’t mind when we strike out swinging, but too often we strike out looking. Disappointing!

— Don Murphy (@donmurphy12a) March 13, 2025

There’s outstanding frustration that the marijuana banking reform failed to be enacted last session with Democrats in control of the Senate and House of Representatives. The standalone SAFER Banking Act moved through the Senate Banking Committee in late 2023, but it was never brought to the floor. Earlier versions have passed the full House multiple times.

On the House side, a Republican lawmaker said last month that he’s hopeful that Congress will be able to get the marijuana banking bill across “the finish line” this session, arguing that the current barriers to financial services for the industry represent a “second tier” of prohibition.

Cannabis industry banking challenges also came up in several congressional hearings last month, including a Senate Banking Committee meeting on debanking where senators on both sides of the aisle addressed the lack of financial services access for marijuana businesses.

At that hearing, one GOP member suggested that the issue warrants a broader examination of federal cannabis policies.

The Brookings Institution’s Aaron Klein also briefly addressed the cannabis banking issue at the hearing after submitting written testimony where he recommended that the committee “either combine SAFE Banking with broader [suspicious activity reports, or SARs] reform or enhance SAFE Banking to address the problems with SARs filing on state-licensed cannabis businesses.”

Meanwhile, congressional researchers recently released a report detailing the subject of debanking—while making a point to address how the marijuana industry’s financial services access problem “sits at the nexus” of a state-federal policy conflict that complicates the debate.

While the SAFE Banking Act to address the issue is expected to be filed again this session—that introduction is “not imminent” as some recent reports have suggested, a spokesperson for the GOP House sponsor of the last version told Marijuana Moment in January.

“While introduction is not imminent, we hope to have a firmer update on timing within the coming weeks,” the staffer for Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) said.

With Republicans now in control of the House and Senate—and leadership having historically opposed even modest cannabis legislation, including the banking bill—there are open questions about the prospects of advancing marijuana reform this session.

However, some are holding out hope that a measure to allow cannabis industry banking access could move, especially given President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the proposal on the campaign trail.

Separately, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced in December that it’s convening focus groups comprised of marijuana businesses to better understand their experiences with access to banking services under federal prohibition.

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A Senate source told Marijuana Moment in December that Republican House and Senate leadership “openly and solely blocked” then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) attempt to include the bill in a government funding bill as the session came to a close.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) had challenged the idea that there was enough GOP support for the SAFER Banking Act to pass on the Senate floor during the lame duck session.

Warren accused certain Republican members of overstating support for the legislation within their caucus, while also taking a hit at Trump for doing “nothing” on cannabis reform during his time in office as he makes a policy pivot ahead of the election by coming out in support of the marijuana banking bill and federal rescheduling.

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) also recently argued in an interview with Marijuana Moment that the main barrier to getting the marijuana banking bill across the finish line is a lack of sufficient Republican support in the chamber. And he said if Trump is serious about seeing the reform he recently endorsed enacted, he needs to “bring us some Republican senators.”

Prior to becoming House speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) consistently opposed cannabis reform, including on incremental issues like cannabis banking and making it easier to conduct scientific research on the plant.

Meanwhile, on the one-year anniversary of a Senate committee’s passage of the SAFER Banking Act in September, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis on the economic impact of the reform, including the likely increase in federally insured deposits from cannabis businesses by billions of dollars once banks receive protections for servicing the industry.

Separately, the CEO of the financial giant JPMorgan Chase said recently that the company “probably would” start providing banking services to marijuana businesses if federal law changed to permit it.

Two Months Into New Congress, Bipartisan Marijuana Leaders Have Yet To Even Meet As Psychedelics Caucus Sees ‘Momentum’

Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.

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