| Cannabis banking reform suffered another defeat in Congress this week as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell successfully encouraged Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to exclude the SAFE Banking Act’s provisions from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Kentucky Republican called on Schumer, D-N.Y., and Pelosi, D-Calif., to forego the cannabis banking reform measure, which would allow federally regulated financial institutions to work with state-legal cannabis businesses, and suggested that Democrats could have brought the SAFE Banking Act to the Senate floor earlier this year instead of attaching it to the NDAA. Withholding the SAFE Banking language from the defense bill, McConnell argued, would boost the NDAA’s chances of passing Congress before the end of the year. When the NDAA text was ultimately released Dec. 6, it did not include any provisions related to federal cannabis policy reform. So, where does SAFE Banking go from here? House Democrats have their majority leadership days numbered following November’s election, when Republicans gained nine seats (with one race still pending) to retake control of the chamber in 2023. Under Democratic control for the past four years, the House has passed the SAFE Banking Act seven times, including twice as standalone bills. The Senate has yet to take up the legislation, which was originally introduced in 2019. Schumer said during a campaign debate in October that lawmakers “are getting very close to a deal” on cannabis banking reform. “I am working in a bipartisan way with Democrats and Republicans to take the SAFE Banking Act, which allows financial institutions to involve themselves in cannabis companies and lend money to them—but it also does things for justice, such as expunging a record,” he said. Can he pull it off? -Melissa Schiller, Senior Digital Editor | 