Last week, more than a fifth of the U.S. Senate filed identical cannabis banking legislation, though it has not yet been scheduled for a hearing or a vote.
The new letter from state officials was led by Pennsylvania Secretary of Banking and Securities Robin L. Wiessmann and is co-signed by regulators from states such as Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Utah, among others.
“A majority of states now have medical marijuana programs and it has become increasingly necessary to craft policy to respond to emerging challenges in this rapidly growing industry,” Wiessmann said in a press release. “Establishing a safe harbor for banks to serve these entities would help reduce the risk associated with large cash-and-carry operations and bring the safeguards, activities, and sales associated with this business into the regulatory reporting compliance framework.”
Wiessmann led a group of 13 state financial regulators in sending a similar letter to Congress last year.
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Trump administration officials have indicated they’d like Congress to resolve the issue sooner rather than later.
“There is not a Treasury solution to this. There is not a regulator solution to this,” Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin said during a House hearing last week. “If this is something that Congress wants to look at on a bipartisan basis, I’d encourage you to do this. This is something where there is a conflict between federal and state law that we and the regulators have no way of dealing with.”
In a separate hearing he pledged to have his staff review the pending cannabis banking legislation and provide a possible endorsement within two weeks.