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Committee reviews S.323 hemp amendments and tables further action over fee questions
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Summary
Legislative counsel presented draft fixes to S.323 and new provisions giving the Cannabis Control Board rulemaking authority on craft processors and fees; lawmakers raised commerce‑clause and small‑producer concerns and tabled the amendment for further work.
Brandon Schulman of the Office of Legislative Council told the Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry committee that a draft amendment to S.323 corrects internal citations and adds language clarifying fee deposit and rulemaking authority for hemp processing.
Schulman said the first four instances of the amendment are non‑substantive citation corrections, while later sections (numbered in the draft as 10–12) would allow the Cannabis Control Board to define "craft processors," exempt some product categories from registration, and adopt or waive certain fees through rulemaking. "These citations are just about fees, but nothing substantive is changing in the first 4 instances of amendment," Schulman said.
Committee members questioned whether the bill should say the board "may" set fees rather than "shall," to leave numeric and structural fee decisions to the board during rulemaking. One member summarized concerns raised in testimony from small, craft hemp producers, saying a $75 per‑product registration and a $500 rate in another line were viewed as cumbersome for producers with many products. "It seems that every person who produced hemp products said that that is cumbersome," a committee member said, urging the panel to consider delegating fee structure to the CCB.
Schulman cautioned lawmakers about designing fees that could discriminate against out‑of‑state businesses: "The committee should be cautious about designing fees that favor in‑state versus out‑of‑state business," he said, warning of potential interstate commerce concerns. He also noted S.323 does not itself define "craft processor," leaving that definition to the board unless the committee adds guardrails.
Members discussed carving out craft producers via board rulemaking while keeping a general fee schedule for larger producers to fund the new oversight workload. One member said delegating the detailed schedule to the Cannabis Control Board made sense because the board had indicated it would use rulemaking to define categories and rates.
The committee did not take a final vote. The chair said the panel was not ready and would "table this," asking staff to notify Government Operations (GovOps) and return to the matter at a later date. No formal motion record or roll‑call vote was included in the transcript.
What it means: The amendment as drafted shifts detailed rate‑setting to the Cannabis Control Board and clarifies authority to collect and deposit fees into a board fund; key outstanding issues are how to define "craft processors," whether per‑product fees are appropriate for small producers, and how to avoid creating interstate‑commerce exposure. The committee will revisit the amendment after staff follow‑up and further drafting.
Next steps: The committee tabled consideration and instructed staff to brief GovOps and prepare to continue the discussion at a later meeting.
