Rep. Pete Sessions objects to continuing resolution over added hemp/THC provisions

Representative Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told Washington Journal he voted against the continuing resolution because Senate edits to the bill changed hemp rules in ways he said would ‘‘come alive’’ the market for THC-derived products.

Sessions said House leadership treated the measure as a suspension vote rather than sending it through the Rules Committee, a procedural move he criticized as denying members a normal review. "We worked with people. We listened to them. We knew where their pressure points were," he said, describing his two decades on the Rules Committee.

Sessions added that the Senate ‘‘changed our mark’’ and added a provision that, in his view, reopens the market for THC by altering the hemp framework. He warned the change would create a roughly 45-day window during which "this industry will come alive, and it will make it **** near impossible to turn it back once this happens." He said those factors — not support for shutting government down — motivated his vote against the measure.

Sessions also described specific public-safety concerns, including the emergence of delta-9 products and THC in vape pens, which he said are showing up in schools and complicating workplace safety.

The interview did not include a full, formal text of the continuing resolution or statute citations; the transcript records the house vote tally as "3 3 70 to 48" and identifies Sessions as among the 48 who voted against the measure. The exact bill text and legislative identifiers were not specified in the conversation.