The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies released a funding bill Wednesday that would bar federal officials from advancing marijuana rescheduling—directly at odds with the Trump administration's announcement last week that it is proceeding with the reform. The committee is scheduled to mark up the bill Thursday. It has advanced similar language in prior years, but those provisions never became law.
The anti-rescheduling provision reads:
“SEC. 591. None of the funds appropriated under this Act or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to reschedule marijuana (as such term is defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)) or to remove marijuana from the schedules established under section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812).”
The Department of Justice announced last week that marijuana products regulated by a state medical cannabis license—as well as any FDA-approved marijuana products—immediately moved to Schedule III. A broader administrative hearing on cannabis rescheduling is set for this summer.
The bill also renews the medical cannabis rider (SEC. 531) in place since 2014, barring the Justice Department from interfering with state medical marijuana programs. Nebraska appears in the rider's state list for the first time; advocates had noted the state was omitted from previously enacted appropriations legislation despite voters approving medical cannabis legalization in 2024. A new subsection (b)—never previously enacted—would allow the DOJ to still enforce 21 U.S.C. 860, which mandates enhanced penalties for distributing cannabis within 1,000 feet of an elementary school, vocational school, college, playground, or public housing unit.
The bill also includes a rider shielding state hemp research programs from federal interference under section 7606 (“Legitimacy of Industrial Hemp Research”) of the Agricultural Act of 2014 (Public Law 113-79).
The bill's release coincides with several pending Capitol Hill efforts to delay or alter implementation of a law that stands to federally recriminalize hemp THC products later this year.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said this week that she supports the Trump administration's cannabis rescheduling move—even if it “doesn’t quite make all the wrongs right” by leaving behind people who “had their lives destroyed by the war on drugs.”
