Early this morning, Congressional leaders released text of an agreed end-of-year "omnibus" spending bill to fund the federal government, and the EQUAL Act, one of the final issues on the table for inclusion, failed to make the cut. The Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law Act of 2021, or EQUAL Act, would have eliminated the 18:1 federal sentencing disparity between drug offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine, a relic of the War on Drugs.

Thousands of nonviolent federal prisoners eligible for early release under a promising Trump-era law remain locked up nearly four years later because of inadequate implementation, confusion and bureaucratic delays, prisoner advocacy groups, affected inmates and former federal prison officials say.