IIB 
110TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 5512 
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
MAY 12, 2008 
Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and 
Urban Affairs 
AN ACT 
To reduce the costs of producing 1-cent and 5-cent coins, 
provide authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to 
perform research and development on new metallic con-
tent for circulating coins, and to require biennial reports 
to Congress on circulating coin production costs and 
possible alternative metallic content. 
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Coin Modernization 
and Taxpayer Savings Act of 2008’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds as follows: 
(1) International demand along with market 
speculation for commodity metals has, over the past 
several years, increased the cost of producing circu-
lating coins in the United States. 
(2) In a July 30, 2007, letter to the Congress, 
the Secretary of the Treasury, with support of the 
Administration’s Office of Management and Budget, 
requested that legislation be put forward to author-
ize the Secretary of the Treasury to make changes 
to the composition of circulating coins. 
(3) The United States Mint has studied alter-
native metals for use in circulating coins, as noticed 
in its 2004 annual report. 
(4) In 1943, the United States Mint produced 
zinc-coated steel pennies in response to war-time de-
mands for copper. 
(5) The United States Mint gained further ex-
perience changing the metal content of pennies in 
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1982, when it began producing copper-coated zinc 
pennies as a result of rising copper prices. 
(6) The Royal Canadian Mint has produced for 
several years a copper-coated steel 1-cent coin that 
is similar to the United States penny at a signifi-
cantly lower cost than the cost to produce the 
United States penny. 
(7) Given the current cost to make a penny and 
volume of pennies minted, by simply reducing penny 
production costs to face value, the United States will 
save more than $500,000,000 in the next 10 years 
alone. 
(8) Reducing the cost to produce a nickel to 
face value will save the United States an additional 
$60,000,000 per year. 
(9) Commodity metal prices are often cyclical in 
nature, and can be inflated by speculation, so it is 
important that a solid trend in the rising price of a 
commodity metal be established before any change in 
the metal content of a coin is made. 
SEC. 3. IMMEDIATE REDUCTION IN THE COST OF PRO-
DUCING 1-CENT COINS THROUGH THE USE 
OF STEEL PENNIES. 
Subsection (c) of section 5112 of title 31, United 
States Code, is amended to read as follows: 
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‘‘(c) COMPOSITION OF 1-CENT AND 5-CENT COINS.— 
‘‘(1) 1-CENT COIN.— 
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—Subject to paragraph 
(2), beginning 270 days after the date of the 
enactment of the Coin Modernization and Tax-
payer Savings Act of 2008, the 1-cent coin 
shall— 
‘‘(i) be produced primarily of steel; 
and 
‘‘(ii) meet such other specifications as 
the Secretary may determine to be appro-
priate, including any change in the weight 
from that specified in subsection (a)(6). 
‘‘(B) TREATMENT.—The 1-cent coin shall 
be treated to impart a copper color to the ap-
pearance of the coins so that the appearance is 
similar to 1-cent coins produced of a copper- 
zinc alloy. 
‘‘(C) EXCEPTION FOR LINCOLN BICENTEN-
NIAL NUMISMATIC PENNIES.—No provision of 
this paragraph shall apply with respect to 1- 
cent coins described in section 304 of the Presi-
dential $1 Coin Act of 2005 that are issued for 
numismatic purposes. 
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