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 hearing 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
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