House Democrats include marijuana safe harbor for banks in latest COVID relief bill

WASHINGTON — The Democratic writers of the U.S. House of Representatives’ latest $2.2 trillion COVID relief bill included language to allow financial institutions to service marijuana businesses without fear of penalty.

The revised HEROES Act submitted this week includes the text of the SAFE Banking Act, which would allow banks to offer services to marijuana-related businesses and allows third-party vendors such as landlords and contractors to take on work for a marijuana business without potentially violating money-laundering laws.

As of Wednesday afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have begun talks on the new bill but failed to reach an agreement. The House is due to vote on the bill late on Wednesday, just days before the chamber adjourns through Election Day.

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The first iteration of the HEROES Act, valued at $3.4 trillion, included the language, saying that the current system wherein employees have to bring cash physically to banks puts them at risk of contracting the COVID-19 virus.

The Republican-led Senate’s COVID package didn’t include the language, which was part of the impasse the two chambers have been stuck at for months.

The first COVID relief bill, the CARES Act, has mostly run out in terms of fiscal support to businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program and the additional $600 per week to the millions of Americans left unemployed due to the economic havoc caused by the virus.

Originally proposed by Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Arvada), the House passed the SAFE Act last year with the support of all but one Democrat and a slim minority of Republicans.

However, the bill has languished in the Republican-controlled Senate, which turned its attention to a looming government shutdown and, at the time, the possibility that the House would impeach President Donald Trump.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) was supportive in the nationwide legalization of hemp in recent years.