Major U.S. entities, including Bank of America and the National Rifle Association (NRA), are lobbying at the federal level on cannabis banking reform, as first reported by Cannabis Wire last week.
Both groups included S. 2860, the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, on their lobbying disclosures for the third quarter of 2023, the news outlet reported.
The legislation, which would provide safe harbor for banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions and payment processors that provide services to state-legal cannabis businesses, is a revised version of the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which passed the U.S. House seven times but has consistently stalled in the Senate.
RELATED: SAFE Banking Act: How We Got Here, What’s Next For SAFER
Bank of America included in its latest lobbying disclosure “S. 2860, SAFER Banking Act, issues related to provision of financial services.” Similarly, the NRA included “S. 1323” and “S. 2860” in its disclosure—S. 1323 is the SAFE Banking Act of 2023.
A spokesperson for Bank of America told Cannabis Wire that the financial institution has no comment on the lobbying disclosure and no official position on the SAFER Banking Act.
The news outlet also reported that Mastercard Worldwide first lobbied in 2019 and 2020 on federal cannabis banking reform but then stopped including cannabis in its lobbying disclosures until this quarter, when it noted “issues related to cannabis banking” and “S.2860.”
The SAFER Banking Act, which has bipartisan support, advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee at the end of September and has been officially placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar for a full floor vote, although its fate is uncertain following U.S. House Republicans electing Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., as Speaker Oct. 25 following a more than three-week vacancy for the position.
RELATED: New House Speaker Mike Johnson Consistently Votes Against Cannabis Reform
Nonetheless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has vowed to “bring SAFER Banking to the floor for a vote as quickly as possible” in that chamber.
“Today’s markup of SAFER Banking represents a huge step forward in the Senate’s effort to help cannabis businesses operate more efficiently, more safely, more transparently,” Schumer said following the bill’s advancement out of the Senate Banking Committee last month. “It's been a goal of mine since we started this session of the Senate to move forward on this legislation.”
Bank of America, the NRA and Mastercard will likely be following the bill’s progression very closely.
