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Senate Democrats had four years to pass federal cannabis banking legislation with a majority in the upper chamber throughout Joe Biden’s presidency. Still, they fumbled the opportunity under Sen. Chuck Schumer’s tutelage.

The former majority leader from New York sat idle for 15 months following the Senate Banking Committee’s passage of the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act in September 2023.

Although Schumer vowed at the time that he would bring the legislation to a full floor vote “with all due speed,” he failed to follow through despite having the likely support for the bill’s passage last Congress, including 44 Democrats, 15 Republicans and up to nine swayable votes.

Federal cannabis banking reform, which would provide safe harbor to financial institutions wishing to provide services to the industry, had never stood a better chance in the upper chamber.

RELATED: Where All 100 US Senators Stand on SAFER Banking Act

Following November’s election, Republicans reclaimed a majority in the U.S. Senate, 53-47, retained their majority in the House and took back the White House for a GOP trifecta.

Although President Donald Trump indicated he would work with Congress to pass common-sense laws, including safe banking for state-authorized cannabis companies, access to traditional business opportunities like credit cards, payroll and loans doesn’t appear any closer to becoming a reality for the industry under new Republican leadership in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has a history of opposing banking reform for the industry, saying in 2020, when House lawmakers attached the SAFE Banking Act to a $3-trillion stimulus relief bill, that “in case Democrats didn’t realize, Americans aren’t suffering from a lack of cannabis right now.”

However, despite Thune’s past “misguided opinions and policy positions” on cannabis, NORML Political Director Morgan Fox said in November that he’s confident Thune can evolve on the reform issue.

“While it is extremely doubtful that comprehensive cannabis policy reform will be a priority in the Senate under his leadership, we’re hopeful that his record as a level-headed lawmaker means that he will listen to evidence, experience, and the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly want to see federal policy reform,” Fox said.

Before a cannabis banking reform bill potentially reaches Thune’s discretion to call a floor this Congress, it would need to survive the Senate Banking Committee. Former Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who pushed the SAFER Banking Act through the committee last Congress, lost his reelection campaign to Republican businessman Bernie Moreno after 18 years as a senator.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who now holds the keys as the committee’s new chairman, was among nine senators who opposed the SAFER Banking Act during the September 2023 markup hearing. Previously, he expressed concerns that the legislation “would create loopholes in our money laundering laws, making it harder to catch criminals that traffic weapons, fentanyl and even people—much harder—which is a consequence that we must eliminate if this bill becomes law.”

Most recently, Scott announced that the Senate Banking Committee would hold a hearing focused on debanking, “Investigating the Real Impacts of Debanking in America,” at 10 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2025.

“Debanking is un-American—every legal business deserves to be treated the same regardless of their political beliefs,” Scott said. “Unfortunately, under Operation Chokepoint 2.0, Biden regulators abused their power and forced financial institutions to cut off services to digital asset firms, political figures, and conservative-aligned businesses and individuals. This is unacceptable. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, I look forward to working with President Trump, industry leaders, and members of both parties to stop these abuses.”

Scott did not clarify in his original announcement if the hearing’s focus on “legal” businesses would include state-legal cannabis businesses that operate in licensed markets but are at odds with the federal status of cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance.

However, in announcing witnesses on Jan. 28 for the hearing, Scott spelled it out: the hearing will focus on “federally” legal businesses only.

“This hearing will provide an important opportunity to hear directly from Americans who operate federally legal businesses and have been debanked,” he said. “It will also allow the Banking Committee, and the American public, to learn more about whether there was improper influence by financial regulators.”

An Obama-era initiative, “Operation Choke Point” involved federal financial regulators putting pressure on banks to break ties with specific “high-risk” industries like firearm manufacturers and payday lenders, which some conservative lawmakers last Congress worried would return in a greater force under the SAFER Banking Act.

Those who opposed the legislation in committee—specifically Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho—expressed concerns over the threat of these regulators forcing banks and other financial institutions to debank companies simply because the presidential administration did not favor their business types.

In announcing the upcoming hearing, Scott encouraged businesses and individuals who have been debanked to contact his staff through its confidential whistleblower resource (email: [email protected] | call: 202-224-4287) ahead of the hearing to help ensure that “bad actors who have exploited their powers” are held accountable.

Since then, Flowhub CEO Kyle Sherman and his team established a form for cannabis industry employees who have been debanked or denied loans to fill out so they can share their experiences directly with Scott and the committee.

Industry reactions have also met the news of the upcoming hearing.

“For too long, political motivations have influenced our banking system, impacting hundreds of thousands of Americans employed in the state-legal cannabis industry,” Curaleaf Chairman and CEO Boris Jordan said on X.  “I’d like to thank our employees for sharing their experiences with debanking, and I encourage anyone affected to utilize the confidential whistleblower resource to help enact change and pass SAFE banking now.”

There were more than 440,000 full-time jobs in state-licensed cannabis industries in 2024, according to industry staffing platform Vangst.

“I’ve been de-banked from Wells Fargo (yes, the bank which fraudulently opened bank accounts), First Republic, and had my credit card of over 25 years revoked by Citibank even though they let my wife keep hers,” Glass House Group Chairman and CEO Kyle Kazan said on X. “All because I’m in the regulated cannabis industry.”

“I got de-banked, and I’m just a non-plant-touching #cannabis policy reform advocate,” American Cannabis Collective founder Don Murphy said on X.

One day before Scott announced the hearing, Bank of America posted on X that it serves more than 70 million clients and welcomes conservatives: “We would never close accounts for political reasons and don’t have a political litmus test.”

Kim Rivers, CEO of Florida-based cannabis operator Trulieve, begged to differ.

“Except you literally did this to me after banking with you for over 20 years, all because I am the CEO of a state-legal, licensed cannabis company that employs 6,000 Americans!” she wrote on X.

While it’s now more apparent that the Republican-controlled Senate Banking Committee’s debanking hearing will focus on federally legal businesses, not cannabis, it’s perhaps noteworthy that one of the three named witnesses, Stephen Gannon, a partner at David Wright Tremaine LLP, works for a law firm that represents cannabis and cannabis-adjacent businesses.

The other two witnesses—Evan Hafer and Nathan McCauley—founded a veteran-owned coffee company and a regulated crypto platform, respectively.

Although cannabis banking legislation has failed to reach the U.S. Senate floor, the U.S. House passed previous renditions of the SAFE Banking Act seven times between 2019 and 2022—each time with bipartisan support and while Democrats held majorities in the lower chamber.