Bipartisan Senate Bill Would Ease Marijuana Businesses’ Access to Banking Services

A bill introduced Thursday with bipartisan backing in the U.S. Senate would prevent federal regulators from cracking down on banks that provide financial services to legal marijuana businesses. The bill, similar to one pending in the House of Representatives, aims to rectify the lack of access many recreational and medicinal marijuana businesses have to payment card merchant accounts and business checking accounts, forcing them to conduct business in cash.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is the sponsor of the Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act of 2015 (S.1726). The most prominent co-sponsor is Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a libertarian-leaning presidential candidate. The other co-sponsors are Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Democrats Michael Bennet, also of Colorado, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Patty Murray of Washington.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws legalizing the use of marijuana in some form, mostly medicinal, according to the Governing.com Web site. Four states—Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon—now permit recreational sales.

Despite marijuana’s increasing acceptance in state capitols, banks have been reluctant to serve legal cannabis businesses because marijuana use is still illegal under federal law. Some banking groups have said they won’t serve the growing industry until Congress gives a clear signal that they can do so without running afoul of federal banking laws and regulations.

“Without the ability to access bank accounts, accept credit cards, or write checks, businesses must operate using large amounts of cash,” Merkley said in a news release. “This creates safety risks for businesses and surrounding communities, and makes it more difficult for local and state governments to collect taxes.”

S.1726 would prohibit regulators from banning, penalizing, or discouraging a bank “from providing financial services to a legitimate state-sanctioned and regulated marijuana business,” the release says. Similarly, a bank could not lose federal deposit insurance solely because it serves legal marijuana businesses.

Regulators further would be barred from recommending or providing incentives to a bank to downgrade or cease providing services to such businesses, nor could they take action on loans just because the loans are to legal marijuana providers.

The bill also would create a legal safe harbor from criminal prosecution, liability and asset forfeiture for banks and their officers and employees who serve state-sanctioned marijuana businesses, while maintaining banks’ rights not to offer such services. Banks serving the cannabis industry would have to comply with current guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen), which the senators expect will evolve as states and the federal government adapt new policies related to legal marijuana.

The Senate bill, assigned to the Senate Banking Committee, mirrors H.R.2076, which was introduced April 28 by a Colorado Congressman and has 26 co-sponsors. That bill has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.

Despite some support in Congress, the state-sanctioned marijuana industry has no guarantee that it will escape from its no man’s land between state and federal law. A report on Yahoo! Finance notes that the House bill had been re-introduced after a similar earlier effort failed.