Americans for Common Cents (ACC) Executive Director Mark Weller promoted the value of the one-cent coin and discussed alternative metals for circulating coins in testimony before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, on November 29, 2012.  In a panel that included former Mint Director Phil Diehl and former OMB Director Jim Miller, Weller focused on the use of alternative metals in U.S. coins, and the importance of the penny to America’s economy and culture.

Weller said that steel is a coin material that saves money and has been used successfully in Canada and other countries. But he noted that metal content was only one component in the rising cost of circulating coins.  Weller added that the Mint’s substantial overhead, as well as cost accounting changes made by the Mint that inflate the reported cost of the penny and the nickel, need additional focus.

His testimony began with a statement that ACC does not have a preference regarding which metals are used to create our coins and that its focus is directly solely on the broader fact that consumers benefit with a low denomination coin. Based on public opinion polling and economic research, Weller said the penny is important to the American economy, working families benefit from the penny, and America’s many charitable organizations thrive on it.

ACC considers it prudent to look at ways to make coins less expensively, and it applauded the subcommittee’s work in 2010 directing the Department of Treasury to review the metallic content of U.S. coins. The complete written statement from Mark Weller can be found here.  

Americans for Common Cents was established in 1990 to conduct research and provide information to Congress and the Executive Branch on the need to retain the penny. The organization is broad-based and comprised of, and endorsed by, many of the nation’s leading coin and numismatic organizations, charitable organizations that benefit from penny donations, and companies involved in the manufacturing and transport of the penny.