House Rules Panel Closes Door on Hemp THC Amendments

The House Rules Committee voted 8-4 on June 2, 2026 to clear the fiscal year 2027 agriculture spending bill for a House floor vote — without a single hemp amendment attached. The decision leaves the hemp-derived THC market with no congressional relief before a November deadline that will effectively recriminalize most products currently on the market.

The committee’s structured rule for the fiscal year 2027 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agency Appropriations Act — published on the Rules Committee website — limits floor consideration to those amendments printed in the committee’s report. None of the hemp-related proposals made that list.

Four Amendments, No Floor Votes

Among the more than 100 amendments submitted before the May 28, 2026 deadline, four addressed the November hemp ban.

Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) submitted the most detailed proposal — the Lawful Hemp Protection Act, a 25-page measure that would have replaced the November ban with a federal regulatory framework for consumable hemp products. Under Barr’s plan, finished hemp consumer products could contain up to 1 percent delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis, replacing the forthcoming 0.4-milligram-per-container ceiling. The proposal also would have banned synthetic cannabinoids and required domestic sourcing, set a minimum purchase age of 21 with civil penalties for violations, established a three-tier federal distribution model for hemp beverages modeled on the alcohol industry, and imposed a 5-cent-per-milligram excise tax on hemp drinks.

Two other amendments sought simpler relief. Reps. Russell Fry (R-SC) and Jim Baird (R-IN) filed for a two-year delay; Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) submitted a late amendment requesting one year. A fourth proposal — from Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Fry — would have blocked federal agencies from spending funds to enforce the November law. Comer and Fry withdrew that enforcement rider before the panel could act on it.

The committee’s 8-4 party-line vote settled the question: none of the proposals advances to the floor.

The Law That Takes Effect in November

The measure that sent the hemp industry scrambling is a federal spending package signed on November 12, 2025, that significantly narrowed what counts as legal hemp under federal law. The amendment takes effect on November 12, 2026. Under the new standard, a finished hemp-derived product can contain no more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container — a calculation that includes not just delta-9 but THCA, delta-8, and similar isomers. Products containing cannabinoids synthesized or manufactured from non-hemp starting materials are banned outright.

The impact on today’s market is severe. Products currently on shelves routinely contain 2.5 to 10 milligrams of THC per unit — well above the new ceiling. The U.S. Hemp Roundtable estimates the redefined standard would eliminate roughly 95 percent of existing hemp-derived cannabinoid products. The industry, as it currently stands, supports an estimated 300,000 jobs and generates approximately $1.5 billion in annual state tax revenue, according to the Roundtable.

The provision also eliminates most delta-8 products, which were manufactured at scale using a CBD conversion process, and covers any cannabinoid “not capable of being naturally produced by a cannabis plant.”

Understanding how the 2026 definition change affects hemp products is increasingly urgent for operators who have built supply chains around the current framework.

What’s Left on the Legislative Calendar

The fiscal year 2027 appropriations bill is the third major vehicle to come up short for hemp relief. The House Agriculture Committee in March 2026 blocked delay amendments to the Farm Bill as non-germane. The Farm Bill itself, which the House passed on April 30, 2026, contained provisions for industrial hemp farmers but no modification to the November ban. Republicans then filed these same hemp amendments to the appropriations bill when the Farm Bill route closed — and that route has now closed as well.

Two standalone bills remain in play, though neither has advanced past introduction. The Hemp Planting Predictability Act would push the November 2026 effective date to November 2028, giving Congress room to develop a longer-term regulatory framework. The bill has bipartisan House co-sponsors but no scheduled committee hearing. A separate Senate measure, the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, would replace the ban with a federal regulatory structure imposing 5 milligrams per serving and 50 milligrams per container in THC limits. That bill remains in committee as well.

The White House has signaled interest in a fix. President Trump said publicly in May 2026 that Congress should act to preserve Americans’ access to full-spectrum CBD while restricting products that pose health risks. White House officials sent Barr’s office draft legislative language in April 2026. But Senate Republican leaders have been less encouraging — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) described the effort to avert the ban before November as a difficult legislative path.

With the appropriations route closed, a separate House directive earlier this year pushing the DEA to act on unregulated cannabinoid products may end up defining the federal government’s posture toward hemp-derived THC as the November deadline approaches without legislation.