Defer to States on Marijuana, Data Privacy, Legislators Tell Congress
On the bigger issues facing Congress, some want to toss it to the states to figure out.
As Congress struggles with the hot button issues of data security and marijuana regulation, the nation’s state legislators are urging the federal government to defer to states on policies governing the two.
Most recently, William Pound, executive director of the National Governors Association endorsed the states-rights marijuana bill introduced in the House and Senate.
And last month, Pound criticized congressional committees for not including state policymakers as witnesses on data security issues. The state legislators are particularly concerned about any federal efforts that would preempt state laws.
The issue is particularly thorny in California, which has enacted a tough data security measure that goes into effect next year.
On marijuana, there already is a conflict between laws, Pound said.
“Current federal law is in direct conflict with state marijuana laws and policies,” Pound noted, in lending support to a measure introduced in the Senate by Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and in the House by Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.).
“We recognize that states have differing views on how to treat marijuana, and believe states and localities are best able to determine what marijuana laws and regulations work best to improve the public safety, health and economic development of their communities,” Pound wrote in a letter to lawmakers.
The marijuana bill would, among other things, state that as long as states and tribal nations comply with basic protections, the marijuana provisions of the federal law no longer apply to them as long as their states have legalized cannabis.
Pound pointed out that the legislation would allow financial institutions to serve marijuana-related businesses with fear of sanctions by their regulators.
CUNA and the American Bankers Association have endorsed the measure.
On data security, Pound said that state interests were not reflected during a data security hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee.
He said that witnesses repeatedly called for preemption of state data privacy laws and “decried the significant and diligent efforts of states to act in an area where Congress has failed.”
Pound said that Congress, in enacting any data security legislation, should defer to states where such legislation already has been passed.
California has enacted what is considered by many to be the toughest data security law in the nation.
The law gives consumers the right to know the information that businesses have collected or sold, the right to opt out of a sale of information and in certain circumstances, the right to request information about them be deleted by a business.
California members of Congress have expressed concern about any data law that preempts the state law.
Opposition to any federal legislation by all or a large number of members of the California House delegation could doom a measure since the state has 53 House members.