As the hemp industry raises concerns about congressional attempts to ban most consumable cannabinoid products, a GOP senator has filed a bill that would triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the legislation, titled the Hemp Economic Mobilization Plan (HEMP) Act, last week. It mirrors versions he’s sponsored over the last several sessions.
Hemp and its derivatives were legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, but the industry has experienced multiple setbacks in the years since—and the proliferation of intoxicating cannabinoid products has led to pushes in Congress and state legislatures across the country to reign in the largely unregulated market.
To that point, a GOP-led House committee this week approved a spending bill containing provisions that hemp stakeholders say would devastate the industry, prohibiting most consumable cannabinoid products that were federally legalized during the first Trump administration.
The legislation would “effectively” criminalize hemp-derived cannabinoid products, including CBD, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
In contrast, the newly reintroduced measure from Paul would address one of the most common complaints that lawmakers have heard from hemp businesses under the current law, which is that the crop is federally defined as containing no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight. They say that’s too low, and so the bill would increase that threshold to 1 percent.
It would also address potential problems with testing requirements under U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations. Hemp processors currently get a 15-day window to test the crop’s flower to ensure that the THC concentration is within the allowed limits. But testing flower can be onerous and farmers have said it would stretch their resources thin, not to mention that the plant’s THC is significantly impacted by external factors.
To fix that issue, the bill calls for final hemp products themselves to be tested, rather than the initial flower from the plant.
The legislation also sets documentation requirements for people transporting hemp shipments, intended to prevent further instances of law enforcement seizing the legal crop, believing it to be illicit marijuana. The bill expands the type of documentation that people could possess to demonstrate product legality.
Whereas the initial version of Paul’s measure filed in 2020 would have required them to carry a certificate from a lab demonstrating that the product contains no more than 1 percent THC, they could now instead choose to simply bring a copy of the hemp producer’s license.
While stakeholders would welcome the senator’s proposal, there’s also significant anxiety within the industry about the separate legislation that would significantly upend the hemp market that’s developed over the last several years.
While report language attached to the 2026 appropriations bill was recently amended to clarify lawmakers’ intent not to disrupt the non-intoxicating cannabinoid market—signaling that products like CBD shouldn’t be banned—the legislation itself hasn’t changed and could still jeopardize the industry without further amendments to its provisions.
Hemp industry stakeholders rallied against that proposal, an earlier version of which was also included in the base bill from the subcommittee last year. It’s virtually identical to a provision of the 2024 Farm Bill that was attached by a separate committee last May via an amendment from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), which was also not enacted into law.
A leading alcohol industry association, meanwhile, has called on Congress to dial back language in the House spending bill that would ban most consumable hemp products, instead proposing to maintain the legalization of naturally derived cannabinoids from the crop and only prohibit synthetic items.
Members of Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) also met with lawmakers and staffers in April to advocate for three key policy priorities that the group says is based on “sound principles of alcohol distribution.” They include banning synthetic THC, setting up a federal system for testing and labeling products and establishing state-level power to regulate retail sales.
Separately, key GOP congressional lawmakers—including one member who supports marijuana legalization—don’t seem especially concerned about provisions in the new spending bill that would put much of the hemp industry in jeopardy by banning most consumable products derived from the plant.
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Jonathan Miller, general counsel of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, told congressional lawmakers in April that the market is “begging” for federal regulations around cannabis products.
At the hearing, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) also inquired about FDA inaction around regulations, sarcastically asking if it’d require “a gazillion bureaucrats that work from home” to regulate cannabinoids such as CBD.
A report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) last year called cannabis a “significant threat” to the alcohol industry, citing survey data that suggests more people are using cannabis as a substitute for alcoholic beverages such a beer and wine.
Last November, meanwhile, a beer industry trade group put out a statement of guiding principles to address what it called “the proliferation of largely unregulated intoxicating hemp and cannabis products,” warning of risks to consumers and communities resulting from THC consumption.
Read the text of the HEMP Act below:
Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.
As the hemp industry raises concerns about congressional attempts to ban most consumable cannabinoid products, a GOP senator has filed a bill that would triple the concentration of THC that the crop could legally contain, while addressing multiple other concerns the industry has expressed about federal regulations. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the legislation, titled Read More
