Congressional Democratic Lawmakers Weigh Plans To Save Hemp Industry From Looming Federal Ban

Minnesota congressional Democrats are committing to preventing the collapse
of the hemp industry after lawmakers passed a now-signed spending bill
banning the sale of most consumable THC products, stressing the need to
“fix it” before recriminalization takes effect next year and laying out
opportunities to achieve that.

And according to one lawmaker, it’s not just Democrats who understand the
urgency to prevent the outright ban. A key GOP leader in the House is also
“amenable” to advancing an alternative policy solution, she said.

At a press conference on Monday, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tina Smith
(D-MN), along with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), addressed the pending hemp
prohibition, which they said should be corrected by replacing that policy
with a regulatory framework similar to what Minnesota has implemented at
the state level to prevent youth access and ensure product safety for
adults.

Klobuchar, the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, called
this a “pivotal moment for many farmers, workers and small business owners
who have built our state’s successful hemp industry.”

The senator touted the fact that she helped secure language in
appropriations legislation that provides grant funding for the University
of Minnesota to explore novel ways to utilize hemp for industrial purposes
such as construction materials and pet bedding. At the same time, however,
she said consumables like cannabinoid-infused beverages represent a
“critical” component of the state’s economy that’s “creating jobs” and
should be protected from federal interference.

“We are in a good position to try to do something to fix this,” she said.
“That’s not easy to say in Washington right now, but we may have a Farm
Bill that’s going to be coming through at some point. We’ll have other
vehicles where we can do something to fix this.”

Hemp was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill that President Donald
Trump signed during his first term, with then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-KY) leading the push to end criminalization of the crop at the
time. But the senator has insisted that the policy change wasn’t intended
to allow consumable products with THC, so he’s been determined to close
what he describes as a “loophole” in the law.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) attempted to remove the hemp ban language from the
spending bill Trump signed earlier this month, but a majority of members
voted to table his amendment. Klobuchar and Smith were among those who
voted against the motion to table.

“This is about jobs. It’s about our small businesses. It’s about our
breweries and our farmers. Hemp is actually an old crop with a strong
history in our state,” Klobuchar said at Monday’s event. “A
one-size-fits-all measure in Congress is the last thing we need right now.”

“Yes, we must protect kids. That has been what a lot of my work as county
attorney and since been about—protecting kids. And Minnesota has a regime
that does it, including actually outlawing labeling that would be at all
appealing to kids, including requiring labeling, including a 21-year [age]
limit—and we can protect kids and we can support our small businesses at
the same time. That’s what our state rules do. The hemp provisions in this
government funding bill simply don’t strike the right balance.”

“Every day we fail to address this is another day of uncertainty in a very
uncertain time in our economy,” Klobuchar said. “I want our state small
businesses and farmers to know that we have their back, and we will do
everything we can in our power, in a very difficult Congress, to change
this.”

The members of the Minnesota congressional delegation who spoke at the
press conference each emphasized the last-minute legislative tactics used
to advance the hemp ban, with senators handed a massive spending package
that included the cannabis provisions just one day before they were
expected to decide on the legislation.

‘There was no hearing. There was no planning. People hadn’t heard from
their constituents on this because of the way Sen. McConnell did it,” she
said. “I don’t think anyone’s surprised that he would do something in this
fashion, but that’s what caused, I believe, a lack of information about
what this meant and what this did.”

Industry stakeholders, advocates and lawmakers are stressing the urgency of
the situation. While the hemp ban won’t take effect until one year after
enactment, that still leaves little time in the congressional calendar to
reverse course or create an alternative regulatory framework for products
set to be banned.

“Knowing that we have a short period of time, our job is to work with Sen.
Paul and others—including some Republicans that may have voted one way, but
are now hearing from their constituents, particularly in Midwest states—and
see if we can come up with something that would either allow for state
frameworks,” Klobuchar said.

The senator also floated the idea of having the federal government adopt
Minnesota’s regulations for hemp, or at the very least extending the
timeline before implementation of the national ban to give stakeholders the
opportunity to put forward legislative options for lawmakers to consider.

“There are other Republicans that want to work with us on this, so that’s
what’s in front of us,” the senator said, adding that she’s looking ahead
toward the possibility of amending the enacted law through a “skinny” Farm
Bill or other vehicles that touch on agriculture issues.

“Right now, the key is to get people educated about how bad this is, and
that’s where I’m not as worried about what our language is as I am about
getting that kind of political support to get it done,” she said.

Smith echoed many of her colleague’s points, pointing out that Minnesota
was the first state to specifically legalize hemp-derived THC products and
“did it in the right way, with clear guardrails and bipartisan support and
a regulatory framework that is grounded in public health and consumer
safety and in supporting small businesses.”

“It’s working working here in Minnesota for farmers and producers and
retailers and distributors, and is working for consumers who want safe,
legal and clearly labeled and record well regulated products,” she said.

To that point, even the national retailer Target recently started selling
cannabis drinks at select locations in Minnesota as a pilot program.

“This is what a responsible, growing Minnesota-made market looks like, but
in a last-minute move, Republicans added a provision to the budget bills
that pulled the rug out from underneath this growing market,” Smith said.
The ban is “going to [create] a much, much more chaotic regulatory
environment. It’s going to be impossible to develop national markets for
Minnesota-made products, and it’s going to make banking for these
businesses incredibly complicated and hard to organize.”

“We need to fix this. This is something that we need to fix,” she said. “It
is impossible to have this federal law in place barring Minnesota
businesses for doing what they know how to do best.”

There are issues with federal hemp law as it stands, the senator
acknowledged, and for many who think about the consumable cannabinoid
market, they associate it with potent intoxicating products being sold at
gas stations without age-gating requirements or other regulations to ensure
public safety.

“It’s not uncommon in a new and growing industry that you’ve got a couple
of bad actors that kind of screw things up for everyone,” the senator said.
“And I think that some of the folks who voted [to table] the Paul
amendment, who voted for this ban, were really thinking reasonably about
those bad actors and what we need to do to dial that back and to protect
kids.”

“But so now we have a really important education job to help folks
understand that you can have a safe and secure and responsible market that
is good for businesses [and] good for consumers. That’s the job that we had
ahead of us. And I’m very open-minded about what the solutions are, but I
do think we need to bring some urgency to this because farmers right now
are trying to figure out what they’re going to put in the ground come the
spring.”

Omar, co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus in the House, said at
the press conference that she was “grateful” that lawmakers were coming
together to “raise the alarm and stand with the hemp small business
industry in Minnesota.”

A federal hemp ban will devastate thousands of hemp small businesses in
Minnesota and nationwide.

As Co-Chair of the Cannabis Caucus, I'm doing everything in my power to
roll back this nonsensical and irresponsible provision.
pic.twitter.com/Iy3jvHDb1t

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) November 25, 2025

“At a last minute, without a single public hearing—without talking to
people who are affected— small group of Washington insiders slipped a
provision that would have catastrophic consequences for hemp small
businesses in Minnesota and across this country,” she said.

“This is unacceptable. Minnesota did everything right. Our state created
one of the strongest, most responsible regulatory framework in the entire
country. We implemented age limits to keep products out of kids hands,
strict rules for retailers, high-quality testing, clean labeling and real
accountability,” the congresswoman said. “Because of that hard work,
Minnesota now has a vibrant and safe economy.”

“A one-size-fits-all federal ban punishes our state for doing it the right
way, while doing nothing to stop and regulate it or bad actors elsewhere,”
Omar, who has been rallying lawmakers to get behind the push for a hemp ban
correction, continued. “That is just unsensible policy, and it encapsulates
everything wrong with the current GOP-controlled Congress.”

“We can and we should regulate these products, but banning entirely
everything nationwide is unacceptable… All this will do is kill good jobs,
reduce consumer safety and choice and push people back into the
unregulated—and sometimes dangerous—black markets. So here is what we must
do: Congress needs to fix this, and it needs to fix it quickly. This should
not be a zero sum game. We need a sensible federal framework—one that sets
strong safety standards, protects kids and ensures product quality without
dismantling a thriving industry that states like Minnesota worked so hard
to build. We must get this way to protect small businesses, workers and
consumers. I will be fighting alongside everyone here today and won’t give
up until we roll back this harmful provision, because now is not the time
for us to stop fighting and to give up.”

Notably, while the group of congressional lawmakers at the press conference
were all Democrats, Omar said her office has also reached out to Republican
offices within the Minnesota delegation and she conveyed that House
Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) “understands just how much the industry is
vital to the economy of Minnesota, so he’s much more amenable than the
others.”

“We continue to work with them, trying to make the impression that this is,
as you’ve heard from the industry leaders, an economic issue for
Minnesota,” she said. “This is about job creation. Is about a tax base. And
it certainly has been something that—we don’t like to brag as Minnesotans,
but it’s something that we certainly brag about getting it right. It is
unfair for us to be punished for doing the right thing instead of being
looked at as a model across the country.”

Paul, meanwhile, said last week that he’ll soon file a bill to protect the
hemp industry from the impending hemp ban. And he also called out alcohol
and marijuana interests for allegedly “join[ing] forces” to lobby in favor
of the prohibitionist policy change, which will restrict access to a plant
and its derivatives that are often used therapeutically.

The senator said the forthcoming legislation would make it so state policy
regulating hemp cannabinoid products—with basic safeguards in place to
prevent youth access, for example—”supersedes the federal law.”

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s Democratic top prosecutor, Keith Ellison, was one of
39 state and territory counterparts who sent a letter to congressional
leaders earlier this month that voiced support for the hemp provisions of
the spending bill Trump signed. Ellison later defended his decision, in
part by arguing that states with regulations in place for cannabinoid
products like Minnesota should not have to worry about hemp entering their
market from unregulated, out-of-state operators.

On the other end of the debate, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who helped secure
the hemp re-criminalization language, said last week that he’s not
concerned about attempts to undercut the enacted law, brushing off
arguments about the possible consequences of the policy change as
“desperate mistruths from an industry that stands to lose billions of
dollars by selling intoxicants to children.”

Overall, there’s been widespread outcry over the pending hemp
re-criminalization law, drawing criticism from parents of cannabis patients
, veterinarians and influencers like Joe Rogan, for example.

In response to the hemp ban, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) filed bill that would strike
the contested provisions of the appropriations legislation. But some
stakeholders worry that approach could backfire, and they’re hoping to see
bipartisan bills introduced in he near future that would provide a robust
regulatory model for intoxicating hemp products as a viable alternative to
blanket prohibition.

Meanwhile, GOP political operative Roger Stone said this week that
President Donald Trump was effectively “forced” by Republican lawmakers to
sign the spending bill with the hemp THC ban language.

However, a White House spokesperson said prior to the bill signing that Trump
specifically supported the prohibition language.

The Democratic governor of Kentucky said earlier this month that the hemp
industry is an “important” part of the economy that deserves to be regulated at
the state level—rather than federally prohibited, as Congress has moved to
do.

Also, a leading veterans organization is warning congressional leaders that
the newly approved blanket ban on consumable hemp products could
inadvertently “slam the door shut” on critical research.

While many hemp stakeholders say the ban would effectively eradicate the
industry–even applying to nonintoxicating CBD products that people use for
medical reasons—there’s latent hope that they can strike a compromise deal
with lawmakers before the prohibition is implemented this time next year.

Lawmakers such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) also say that window could
provide an opportunity to advance legislation to create an alternative
regulatory model for consumable hemp products.


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Since 2018, cannabis products have been considered legal hemp if they
contain less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry weight basis.

The new legislation specifies that, within one year of enactment, the
weight will apply to total THC—including delta-8 and other isomers. It will
also include “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are
marketed to have similar effects) on humans or animals as a
tetrahydrocannabinol (as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services).”

The new definition of legal hemp will additionally ban “any intermediate
hemp-derived cannabinoid products which are marketed or sold as a final
product or directly to an end consumer for personal or household use” as
well as products containing cannabinoids that are synthesized or
manufactured outside of the cannabis plant or not capable of being
naturally produced by it.

Legal hemp products will be limited to a total of 0.4 milligrams per
container of total THC or any other cannabinoids with similar effects.

Within 90 days of the bill’s enactment, the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) and other agencies will need to publish list of “all cannabinoids
known to FDA to be capable of being naturally produced by a Cannabis sativa
L. plant, as reflected in peer reviewed literature,” “all
tetrahydrocannabinol class cannabinoids known to the agency to be naturally
occurring in the plant” and “all other known cannabinoids with similar
effects to, or marketed to have similar effects to, tetrahyrocannabinol
class cannabinoids.”

The language slightly differs from provisions included in legislation that
had previously advanced out of the House and Senate Appropriations panels,
which would have banned products containing any “quantifiable” amount of
THC, to be determined by the HHS secretary and secretary of agriculture.

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Industry From Looming Federal Ban appeared first on Marijuana Moment.