The Most Complete Federal Legalization Bill in a Decade Just Cleared Subcommittee. April Will Tell Us If It Goes Any Further.

Comprehensive descheduling, expungements, and a social equity fund — H.R. 4089 is the rare legalization our legislative tracker that tries to answer the equity argument. Whether it can survive the Senate is a different question entirely.

The Marijuana Opportunity Commerce and Accountability Act — H.R. 4089, the MOCA Act — had its first real moment in the 119th Congress on March 5, when the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Courts held a hearing on its provisions. A markup is scheduled for April. If it survives markup and moves to the full committee, it would represent the furthest any comprehensive federal legalization bill has traveled in this cycle.

Whether it gets much further is the part no one is willing to predict with confidence.

What This Bill Actually Does

The MOCA Act would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely — not reschedule it to Schedule III, not leave it to DEA discretion, but remove it outright. Federal prohibition would end. States would retain the authority to set their own rules, from outright bans to full adult-use markets.

But the MOCA Act goes further than descheduling alone. The bill contains three provisions that distinguish it from simpler reform efforts:

A federal excise tax framework. The bill establishes a federal cannabis excise tax, starting low and scaling up over five years, with a portion of revenue directed to a dedicated Cannabis Opportunity and Reinvestment Fund.

A mandatory expungement regime. Federal cannabis convictions would be automatically expunged under the bill. No application process. No discretionary review. The expungements would happen administratively, within 180 days of enactment.

A equity licensing delays grant program. The Cannabis Opportunity and Reinvestment Fund would issue grants to small cannabis businesses, social equity license holders, and re-entry programs in communities most affected by prior enforcement. The mechanism mirrors existing SBA programs and would operate through the Small Business Administration.

The 280E tax provision — the section of the Internal Revenue Code that currently bars cannabis businesses from deducting ordinary business expenses — would be repealed upon enactment.

Who It Affects

The numbers are large and underappreciated. More than 30,000 people currently hold federal cannabis-related convictions, many for conduct that is now legal in the state where it occurred. Automatic expungement would affect every one of them, without requiring individual petitions.

For the 47 states with some form of legal cannabis market — medical or adult-use — federal descheduling would lift the cloud of federal preemption that has prevented banks, insurance companies, and institutional investors from fully engaging with state-legal businesses. The SAFE Banking Act has tried to address this piecemeal for years. The MOCA Act would address it structurally.

Veterans would feel an immediate effect: VA physicians could, for the first time, discuss cannabis treatment options with patients without risking their federal employment, since the underlying federal prohibition would no longer apply.

The Direction

This bill is an expansion of access — broad, structural, and designed to correct prior harms at the same time. The equity provisions are not decorative. The expungement mandate and the reinvestment fund are core to the bill’s coalition, and their inclusion represents a deliberate effort to address the criticism that legalization reform typically benefits operators and investors while leaving people incarcerated.

It is also the most complete answer to the fundamental contradiction in current federal policy: the federal government acknowledges, through DEA rescheduling proceedings, that cannabis does not meet the criteria for Schedule I. The MOCA Act takes that acknowledgment to its logical conclusion.

What Happens Next

The April markup in the House Judiciary Committee is the immediate test. A markup is a committee vote on amendments and final language — it’s where bills either tighten into viable legislation or get picked apart into fragments. The MOCA Act has bipartisan co-sponsors but faces procedural resistance from committee members who prefer incrementalism.

If it clears markup, it would proceed to a full House Judiciary Committee vote. If it clears that, a House floor vote — which leadership has historically been reluctant to schedule. The Senate presents the steepest obstacle: the current Senate Judiciary Committee leadership has shown no appetite for comprehensive legalization, and the 60-vote threshold for cloture makes any major cannabis bill an uphill climb without sustained pressure.

Realistically: the April markup is a prove-it moment. A clean pass with strong bipartisan support changes the political calculus. A fractured markup reveals the coalition limits.

Who’s Behind This

Lead sponsor: Rep. David Trone (D-MD) is the bill’s primary sponsor. Trone, who has been one of Congress’s most consistent voices on cannabis reform, represents Maryland’s 6th district — a state with a functional adult-use market. His sponsorship is consistent with his seven-year legislative record on the issue.

Key co-sponsors: The bill carries co-sponsors from both parties, including members from states with active adult-use markets. The bipartisan framing is intentional — the equity provisions were added specifically to address progressive Democratic skepticism that descheduling alone benefits industry over communities.

Opposition: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who does not sit on the House Judiciary Committee but has been the Senate’s most vocal opponent of legalization, has already signaled opposition to the bill’s equity provisions, arguing the social equity fund constitutes “reparations” and sets a precedent for other drug policy changes. His opposition is consistent with both his voting record and his statements on drug policy going back to 2016.

Swing votes: Several moderate Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have expressed interest in the bill’s small business provisions — particularly the SBA grant structure — without committing to the social equity framing. Those members will matter most in markup.

The Bottom Line

The MOCA Act is the first federal legalization bill in this Congress that tries to answer both the access question and the equity question in a single framework. The April markup will reveal whether Congress is ready to treat that framework seriously or whether legalization reform is still something that happens in subcommittee and stops there.

For the 30,000 people holding federal cannabis convictions, the stakes are not abstract. April is the first real test of whether this Congress is willing to act like it.

Ethan Vale is the Policy Editor at CannabisInquirer.com.