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House passes bill requiring that penny and nickel make financial sense
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Published: May 9, 2008
WASHINGTON
The House voted for cheaper change yesterday, the kind that would make pennies and nickels worth more than they cost to make and save the country $100 million a year.
The unanimous vote advances the legislation to the Senate, but its prospects are muddled by objections from the Bush administration and some legislators.
The bill would require the U.S. Mint to switch from a zinc-and-copper penny, which costs 1.26 cents each to make, to a copper-plated steel penny, which would cost 0.7 cents to make, according to statistics from the Mint and Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, one of the bill's sponsors.
It would require nickels, now made of copper and nickel and costing 7.7 cents to make, to be made primarily of steel, which would lower the cost to make the five-cent coin below its face value.
Advocates say that such actions would push back against rising metal prices and save taxpayers about $1 billion over 10 years.
But even the Mint opposes the House-passed bill.
Mint Director Edmund Moy said that the 270 days that the legislation grants to convert the nation to a steel penny is too short for the metal industry to weigh in. In addition, steel may be vulnerable to rising prices just as the metals currently used.
The legislation directs the Treasury secretary to "prescribe" -- suggest -- a new, more economical composition of the nickel and the penny. Unsaid is the Constitution's requirement that Congress have the final say.
The administration, like others before, chafes at the thought that Congress still clings to that authority.
Moy said this week that the bill is "too prescriptive," in part because it does not explicitly delegate to the Treasury secretary the power to decide the new coin composition.
The bill also gives the public and the metal industry too little time to weigh in on the new coin composition, he said.
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., is expected to introduce another version of the legislation in the Senate.
In 2007, the Mint produced 7.4 billion pennies and 1.2 billion nickels, according to the House Financial Services Committee.
Other coins still cost less than their face value, the Mint said.
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N.C. Politics
Federal Politics
The Downtown Summer Music Series will begin on Thursday. Ed Bumgardner talks to some of the organizers of the Downtown Jazz lineup, in which a form of music known as "smooth jazz" will play a more prominent role this year.
Thursday's relish stories will appear in the Entertainment section.
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