Marijuana Moment: Bipartisan Senators File Marijuana Banking Bill As Trump’s Rescheduling Move Advances

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A bipartisan coalition of U.S. senators have filed a bill to protect banks from being punished for providing financial services to marijuana businesses.

The Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking (SAFE) Act is intended to ease the cannabis industry’s access to financial services, which have been difficult to obtain for some businesses in the sector under ongoing federal prohibition.

Led by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and cosponsored by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Steve Daines (R-MT), the newly refiled measure comes days ahead of the start of a hearing on the Trump administration’s move to reschedule marijuana under federal law.

Earlier iterations of the banking legislation have been introduced in past sessions of Congress, and while versions have been approved by the House of Representatives on several occasions, the reform has never been enacted into law.

The Senate Banking Committee approved a cannabis banking measure in 2023 but it was not subsequently taken up on the floor and died at the end of the 118th Congress.

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Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who currently chairs the banking panel, said last month that the fact that marijuana remains illegal at the federal level while more states legalize it has created a “quandary” for cannabis businesses and banks that wish to serve them.

Even though Scott has opposed the cannabis banking reform in the past, he said that the bill would “allow for the banking question to be solved by making it legal to bank it,” Scott said. “What you don’t want is to have a situation where you have these cash rooms where you have hundreds of thousands of dollars cash sitting in a location. Everyone knows you can’t bank it and therefore the criminal activity is much higher in these places.”

Beyond banking access for businesses, the new bill, S.4942, also contains provisions to ensure that marijuana industry workers can get access to federally backed mortgage loans.

Read the full the cannabis banking bill below:

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