Who?
Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND)
LISTEN: Laslo & Hoeven
Ask a Pol asks:
Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s language to ban hemp with “quantifiable” amounts of THC was stripped out of this year’s agriculture spending bill — enabling the bipartisan measure to move forward — but do you think there’s a way to bridge the divide between McConnell and his libertarian-leaning colleague Rand Paul who tells us his goal remains to "fix it so they don’t kill the hemp industry”?
Key Hoeven:
“There’s a way to do it,” Sen. John Hoeven exclusively told Ask a Pol before the Senate left Washington for their annual August recess. “Between Mitch and Rand, they have different ideas on how you apply the test for hemp and hemp products. They both want a good market for hemp farmers, because that’s a significant crop in Kentucky, which is why I think we’ll get to something.”
ICYMI — Parts of interview first used by Marijuana Moment
Caught our ear
“We kept going back and forth. I thought we actually had something figured out, but we didn’t,” Hoeven told us. “But we’ll keep working.”
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s exclusive interview with Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), slightly edited for clarity.
TRANSCRIPT: Sen. John Hoeven
SCENE: Sen. John Hoeven’s walking through the US Capitol when Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo catches him for a quick hemp interview.
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Matt Laslo: “How big of a win is it on hemp?”
John Hoeven: “Well, the key is we got the Approps bill to the floor, so we actually have a package teed up now for Milcon-VA, Ag and Criminal Justice-Science [spending bills], so that’s a very significant package of appropriations bills. And key now is, we’ve heard on our side so are the Democrats gonna join us and do regular order. They keep saying, everybody around here saying they want regular order.”
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ML: “Yeah.”
JH: “We’ve set it up. Leader [John] Thune has got the bill to go to the floor, and now we need Democrats to engage with us. So the key is that provision and the other things that we had that work on. We got consent to get the bills to the floor now, so the question is, are the Democrats going to work with us.”
ML: “Yeah?”
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JH: “And everybody says that they want regular order. This is their chance to engage now in the apportions process. They’re complaining about rescissions and everything else. Here’s there chance. Let’s see if they engage and get the job done.”
ML: “Because hemp kinda was calling their bluff, because that was the last hurdle?”
JH: “Yeah. Exactly right. And so, as afar as that provision. We can do some more work, figure something out.”
ML: “Yeah?”
JH: “And a s a matter of fact I talked to Rand [Paul] about that yesterday. He’s gonna go over and talk to GT Thompson — not Thompson, but Approps chair on the House side [Tom Cole]. We’ll keep working on it.”
ML: “Yeah?”
JH: “So that wasn’t — the issue wasn’t one that we. You know, we’ll figure it out. We’ll continue to work on it, that’s great. The key is that it enabled us to go forward on the Approps bill.”
ML: “Yeah?”
JH: “Again, everybody says they want regular order. Now let’s see if the action follows the rhetoric, right?”
ML: “What do you think — some of the hemp, the new regs could be? Short of what McConnell wanted, but…?”
JH: “Oh, well. I think there’s a way to do it. So they have different — between Mitch [McConnell] and Rand [Paul], they have different ideas on how you apply the test for hemp and hemp products. They both want a good market for hemp farmers…”
ML: “Yeah.”
JH: “…because that’s a significant crop in Kentucky, which is why I think we’ll get to something.”
ML: “Yeah?”
JH: “We kept going back and forth. I thought we actually had something figured out, but we didn’t.”
ML: “Yeah?”
JH: “But we’ll keep working.”
ML: “Yeah? I’ll be watching. Thank you sir.”
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