U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) led 10 of her colleagues in sending four letters to Senate Appropriators requesting robust funding to support a wide array of small businesses in Nevada, including one letter focused on marijuana businesses.
These requests would provide $37 million for the Rural Business Development Grant Program and $10 million for the Federal and State Technology Partnership Program to support the growth and development of small businesses in rural areas across the nation. These letters also call for “eliminating burdensome barriers to capital for certain small businesses – specifically providing nonprofit child care providers with greater access to loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA), and allowing legal cannabis small businesses in Nevada, and other states where cannabis is legal, to access SBA programs and resources.”
Senator Rosen in a press release said “Small businesses are the backbone of Nevada’s economy, which is why I’m leading efforts to cut through bureaucratic red tape that prevents them from accessing capital and working to secure the federal funding for resources they need to thrive. As a member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I’ll always advocate for Nevada’s small businesses and fight to support them.”
The full text of the SBA cannabis letter can be found below:
Dear Chairman Van Hollen and Ranking Member Haggerty:
As you begin drafting the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Financial Services and General Government Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, we respectfully request that you include bill language prohibiting the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from denying loan applications for the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program, Disaster Assistance Program, Microloan Program, and 504/Certified Development Company Loan Program to legally operating cannabis small businesses in states that have legalized cannabis sale and use. We also request that you include bill language prohibiting SBA from excluding such state-legal cannabis businesses from participating in or benefiting from SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs.
Over the years, there has been a clear shift in public opinion supporting legalization of cannabis in the United States. Most recently, Delaware, Ohio, and Minnesota joined a long list of states and the District of Columbia that have legalized both the medicinal and recreational sale and use of cannabis. In 2022, states collected nearly $3 billion in tax revenue from legal cannabis sales, and that number is expected to grow as more states are poised to legalize cannabis this year. However, SBA’s current policy excludes from its loan and entrepreneurial development programs all small businesses with “direct” or “indirect” products or services that aid the use, growth, enhancement, or other development of cannabis. Consequently, small businesses in states with some form of legal cannabis must choose between remaining eligible for SBA financing and support and participating in or doing business with a rapidly-growing and legal industry.
The SBA’s loan programs provide financial assistance in the form of loans and loan guarantees to small businesses that cannot easily access capital. These include the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program, Disaster Assistance Program, Microloan Program, and 504/Certified Development Company Loan Program. Currently, most banks are reluctant to serve even state-legal cannabis businesses due to conflicts with federal law, meaning that these legally operating small businesses often are forced to operate using only cash, potentially jeopardizing public safety in order to do business. SBA loan programs would be especially helpful to cannabis small businesses because they would fill gaps left by the private sector and could expand the availability of capital for many entrepreneurs– including for our minority, women, and veteran business owners. Likewise, SBA’s entrepreneurial development programs provide critical training, counseling, and technical assistance to small businesses across the country – resources desperately needed by entrepreneurs in the new and burgeoning state-legal cannabis industry.
Access to SBA loan and entrepreneurship programs would support a rapidly growing industry that creates jobs, supports small businesses, and raise revenues in states that have chosen to legalize cannabis. ]
We strongly support SBA making all of its programs open and available to all state-legal cannabis small businesses. We, therefore, ask the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government to include bill language in your forthcoming legislation to help extend SBA loan and entrepreneurship programs to cannabis small businesses legally operating in states that allow the sale and use of cannabis for medicinal or recreational purposes.
Thank you for your leadership in crafting this important appropriations bill, and for your consideration of this request.
Sincerely
Jacky Rosen
United States SenatorTammy Duckworth
United States SenatorRon Wyden
United States SenatorMartin Heinrich
United States SenatorJohn Hickenlooper
United States SenatorEdward J. Markey
United States SenatorAlex Padilla
United States SenatorJeffrey A. Merkley
United States SenatorCory A. Booker
United States SenatorMichael F. Bennet
United States Senator
