Rep. James Comer (R-KY) has thrown his weight behind a bill that would delay the implementation of hemp-banning language in an agriculture funding law set to go into effect in November.
As part of the agriculture funding bill passed in November 2025 to end the government shutdown, President Donald Trump signed into law a provision that lawmakers said was aimed at closing an unintended loophole in the 2018 farm bill that allowed the accessible sale of intoxicating hemp products. The provision created a new limit of allowable hemp-derived THC per product container. The hemp industry has been warning that the new limit effectively wipes out 95% of products on the current market.
The bipartisan Hemp Planting Predictability Act would give the U.S. hemp industry a longer grace period before the hemp ban provision takes effect, delaying the November deadline by two years until November 2028. Many industry lobbyists have advocated a grace period to give farmers more time to adjust ahead of the 2026 planting season and to plan how to fight the ban.
Reps. Jim Baird (R-IN), Comer, Angie Craig (D-MN), Tim Moore (R-NC), and Gabe Evans (R-CO) introduced the bill on Tuesday, and it gained support from 11 other co-sponsors: three Democrats and eight Republicans. Comer held a press conference on Thursday with four farmers to raise awareness about the act, calling it “common-sense legislation.”
“The hemp industry is facing significant challenges and growing uncertainty, and it is long past time for Congress to provide farmers and business owners with the clarity they need to succeed,” he said. “This uncertainty is not abstract: it’s impacting real people, real jobs, and real communities all across our country, particularly in rural America.”
Jim Higdon, co-founder and COO of Kentucky-grown Cornbread Hemp, explained to the Washington Examainer that farmers have to have clarity around the state of the hemp-banning language by mid-February, when H-2A visa applications are due for the temporary agricultural workers that work on many hemp farms across the U.S. Planting season begins in mid-May, but mid-February is the deadline for many farmers to get their ducks in a row.
“If this extension does not get a ride on the next CR or one of the funding bills, farmers are going to be on a back foot, have to make a decision, and, if they don’t grow hemp, they could lose their farms as a result,” Higdon said.
Kevin Sabet, president and CEO of the drug safety group Smart Approached to Marijuana, ripped the legislation introduced this week as a way to let the hemp industry “keep dangerous products on shelves.”
“This bill is just more smoke from an industry that simply wants to keep poisoning people. It is an attempt to end-run legislators and the Americans they represent and keep dangerous products on shelves across the country to hurt kids and families and communities,” he said.
Comer also emphasized the need for follow-up legislation to establish guardrails in the hemp industry against bad actors.
“We must act swiftly to pass legislation that protects jobs, eliminates bad actors, standardizes labeling, and requires third-party testing. These steps are essential to providing certainty for business owners and confidence for consumers,” Comer said.
With bipartisan support and Comer’s weight behind the Hemp Planting Predictability Act, the hemp industry hopes the bill will protect hemp farmers and producers in 2026. Higdon called Comer, Kentucky’s commissioner of agriculture and a farm owner, “the subject matter expert in Congress on this issue.”
HEMP INDUSTRY BRACES FOR UPHEAVAL THANKS TO LITTLE-NOTICED BUDGET PROVISION
“He’s a farmer, still, himself, and he’s a former Agriculture Commissioner. He marshaled the legalization through Kentucky. He helped get McConnell on board in 2014 and 2018, so this has really been his signature issue outside of his committee,” Higdon said.
The bill currently sits in the House Committee on Agriculture, of which Craig is a ranking member.