Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 1047) to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of each of the Nation's past Presidents and their spouses, respectively, to improve circulation of the $1 coin, to create a new bullion coin, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 1047, the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, and urge its immediate passage.

Mr. Speaker, it is rare in this Chamber when we can vote for legislation that is good for business, good for consumers, good for children, good for parents and good for taxpayers all at the same time. Usually we must make our best judgments on how to balance those often competing interests. At this time, however, there are a lot of winners and no losers.

The legislation we are considering, authored by the gentleman from Delaware, holds every chance of solving what has become a real problem in modern commerce, how to get a $1 coin circulating in the sections of the economy that would benefit from having one. We can all remember the old cartwheel silver dollars, or at least some of us can, that were great to have when we were kids, but which were too big and bulky to carry a pocketful, and we can all remember the Treasury's mistake in 1979 when it went to replace the bigger dollars with one that many people thought was indistinguishable from the quarter.

Mr. Speaker, we have all had the experience of trying to buy a fare card in the Metro system here in Washington and having the machine reject our worn dollar time after time or trying to buy something from a vending machine and having it jam with our paper money. That is an inconvenience to the consumer, but it is often a big loss to the operator of the vending machine, not just of that sale, but of all the others who cannot use the machine until it is repaired. Who actually pays for the losses in the end, of course, is the consumer.

Mr. Speaker, doubtless a fully circulating dollar coin will not be as useful or popular in a rural community without public transit as it is in an urban environment. But in cities, it will be a big hit, and in any event, it is the obligation of Congress to provide for the production of coins and currency that allows businesses to operate efficiently.

So the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), who is the author of the 50 State quarter program, a most successful program, and I applaud the gentleman for his leadership and vision. He has come up, again, with an ingenuous solution. Having seen the demand for quarters skyrocket as soon as those coins started changing their design every couple of months, he has designed a program that will do the same for the dollar coin, creating a gimmick, and I don't know whether I wanted to call it a gimmick, but that is what it says right here, that will draw the coins into circulation because of collector demand instead of trying to push the coins out into circulation as the Mint famously and unsuccessfully tried to do in 2000.

Other aspects of the bill, a gold First Spouse coin, a solid gold investor grade coin with a buffalo nickel design and a set of four new penny reverses in 2009 for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, are also good ideas in that regard.

I would also like to make two points. One is that since this idea was that of the gentleman from Delaware, rightfully, the bill we pass ought to bear the number H.R. 902 that he introduced with the gentlewoman from New York and which passed the House 422-6. I chalk the fact that this bill bears a Senate number up to the procedural problem as the Senate rushed to pass the legislation before the Thanksgiving recess, but it is still unfortunate. Make no mistake about it, this legislation came about because of Mike Castle and Carolyn Maloney, and I want to thank both of them for their efforts.

Much more serious is a provision in the Senate bill that was not in the House bill and which will, in my estimation, cause some problems as the Presidential dollar program goes forward, a requirement that a third of all the dollar coins issued during the life of the Presidential dollar program bear the Sakakawea design. Mr. Castle and Mrs. Maloney struck a good commonsense agreement with Mr. Pomeroy over the House version of this bill that would have continued minting Sakakawea design coins to meet demand throughout the life of the Presidential dollar and then return to full production of that design after the Presidential program is finished and the dollar coin establishes a useful and well-circulating medium of exchange.

Mr. Speaker, although not the fault of the design of Sakakawea herself, there will not be the same demand for the Sakakawea coins as for the Presidents, because there will be no real change in the design of the coin from year to year. The problem, of course, is that if the coins are struck but there is no demand, they will need to be stored somewhere at some cost to the government. I will introduce into the Record a letter to that effect from the Federal Reserve.

Mr. Castle and other supporters of this legislation have signaled their intent to revisit this provision in the upcoming session to try to find a way to stimulate demand for the Sakakawea design, and I pledge to work with them in that effort.

With those reservations, Mr. Speaker, this is fine legislation. It will benefit businesses, consumers, have great educational value and actually probably make the government a good deal

of money as collectors take some of the dollars out of circulation. I urge its immediate passage.

Board of Governors of

the Federal Reserve System,

Washington, DC, December 5, 2005.

Hon. Michael G. Oxley,

Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to provide you with

information and perspective on H.R. 902 and S. 1047, the

House- and Senate-passed versions of the ``Presidential $1

Coin Act of 2005,'' particularly as these bills would affect

the Federal Reserve Banks. These bills are intended, in part,

to increase the circulation of $1 coins. Prior to House

passage, I provided comments on H.R. 902 in a letter dated

March 15, 2005, and my colleague, Federal Reserve Board

Governor Mark Olson, provided comments on a similar bill in

an earlier letter dated August 31, 2004. Federal Reserve

Board staff also briefed House and Senate staff on similar

issues. I appreciate that the bills passed by the House and

Senate address several of the comments that were raised in

the previous letters and briefings; however, we continue to

have concerns about several aspects of the proposed bills.

Both bills require the issuance of four new Presidential $1

coins each year. as well as the continued issuance of the

Sacagawea $1 coin. Although both bills provide the Secretary

of the Treasury with discretion to determine the appropriate

number of Presidential $1 coins per design to issue each

year, the Senate bill requires (and the House bill suggests)

that the Secretary and the Board ensure that unmixed supplies

of each newly-issued $1 coin be available to all institutions

that want them during an introductory period. The experience

of the Reserve Banks with regard to the state quarter and

golden dollar programs has been that the commemorative coin

designs increase Reserve Banks' inventories well beyond

levels that they would otherwise hold and increase operating

costs associated with coin inventory management. The public

initially tends to demand a large number of coins for

numismatic purposes, but eventually many of those coins are

returned to the Reserve Banks. This results in the

accumulation of excessive inventories. Assuming that the flow

back of excess Presidential $1 coins to the Reserve Banks is

consistent with that of earlier commemorative coin designs,

we estimate the net present value of the cost associated with

storing excess Presidential $1 coins to be approximately $45

million over the life of the program. As we have previously

suggested, slowing the rate at which new coin designs are

introduced would help reduce these costs.

The Senate-passed bill would exacerbate the Reserve Banks'

inventory challenges, compared to the House-passed bill, by

requiring the minting and issuance of Sacagawea $1 coins ``in

quantities no less than 1/3 of the total $1 coins minted and

issued'' under the Presidential $1 coin program. Establishing

such a relative quota for Sacagawea coins, irrespective of

the actual public demand for that specific coin design, would

likely further increase the amount of excess coin held at the

Reserve Banks. Federal Reserve Board staff estimates that the

Sacagawea coin quota would further increase the cost

associated with storing excess dollar coins by as much as

one-third, or $15 million, to an estimated net present value

of approximately $60 million over the life of the program. We

would expect the Mint to continue to produce Sacagawea coins,

and the Reserve Banks to put Sacagawea coins into circulation

as needed, and we recommend that the final bill not include a

specific requirement that a fixed fraction of new $1 coin

production be dedicated to the Sacagawea design.

It has proven very difficult over time to stimulate public

demand for the $1 coin. As you may know, the Government

Accountability Office (GAO) has reported several times on a

number of barriers to the effective circulation of $1 coins,

including the U.S. public's continued preference for $1

notes. As a result, we urge that the final legislation be

flexible enough to address the possibility of continued low

public demand for the $1 coin and the potential implications

of slow growth in usage for the costs incurred by the Mint

and the Federal Reserve.

On another issue, the House-passed bill provides a sense of

the Congress that at such time as the Secretary of Treasury

determines to be appropriate, and after consultation with the

Federal Reserve, the Secretary should declare the Susan B.

Anthony $1 coin to be obsolete. Neither existing law nor the

bill defines the word ``obsolete.'' We continue to be

concerned that the public might interpret such language as

withdrawing the legal tender status of the coin. Further, if

``obsolete'' means that Susan B. Anthony coins would remain

legal tender but that the Treasury and Federal Reserve should

remove the coins from circulation, this would likely impose

significant operational costs that would also reduce the

potential value to the government of the proposed $1 coin

program. For example, currently available equipment does not

enable the Federal Reserve to sort the different $1 coins

according to their designs in order to remove some designs

from circulation. Therefore. we continue to believe that it

would be prudent not to include language in the bill

suggesting that the Susan B. Anthony coin will be withdrawn

from circulation or declared obsolete.

We hope these thoughts help clarify some of the remaining

technical issues with the two bills. As the House and Senate

work to resolve the differences between the bills, we ask

that you take into consideration the concerns outlined in

this letter.

Sincerely,

Donald L. Kohn,

Member of the Board.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), the First State, who has been a real leader in this effort and shown a great deal of foresight.

Mr. Speaker, I again want to reiterate my support and thanks to the leadership of the gentleman from North Dakota and thanks for his cooperation. The gentlewoman from New York's negotiating skills got the Statue of Liberty on the coin. That is pretty impressive. And the gentleman from the First State has been a real leader in this for a long time. In the great tradition of our committee, we look forward to strong bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 902) to improve circulation of the $1 coin, create a new bullion coin, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to include extraneous material thereon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am pleased that the House will consider today the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 I authored with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney). This legislation honors each U.S. President by placing him on the obverse side of the $1 coin on a rotating basis. By doing so it aims to improve circulation of the $1 coin, which will lower costs to businesses and thus restrain price increases. I believe this program is a great opportunity for educating both children and adults about the history of our country. In addition, although it is not the goal of the program, these new coins will likely generate as much as $5 billion for the government.

Concurrently with this program, the current Sacagawea coin will also be minted. I am pleased that we were able to work with the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) to address his concerns and continue the Sacagawea program, which will now hopefully be stronger than ever.

In many ways this legislation is modeled after the successful ``50 State Quarter Program.'' The 50 State Quarter Program, which I was also proud to have authored, issues five quarters a year bearing images connected with one of the States, so that over a decade each State will have been honored. Before the State quarter program started, the U.S. Mint was making about 400 million quarters a year, but in the first year of the 50 State Quarter Program it minted approximately 1.2 billion quarters. The Mint estimates that one person in each household is collecting the quarters and they are collecting a full set, not just their own State. According to the most recent numbers from the Mint, nearly $5 billion worth of savings have been created for the Federal Government.

It is important to note that this program is likely to be more accepted by the public than previous dollar coin programs. In a 2002 General Accounting Office report to Congress, 25 percent of respondents stated that they would use the dollar coin for more purchases if there was a rotating design similar to the 50 State Quarter Program. Additionally, nearly 50 percent of respondents stated they would collect the new coin if it featured a changing design. And 69 percent of respondents favored U.S. Presidents as the choice for the new rotating design on the dollar coin.

Under the program, the images on the front and back of the coin temporarily would be replaced beginning in 2007 with images of the United States Presidents. Four Presidents a year would be honored, in the order of their service, with a likeness of the President, his name and dates of service, and a number signifying the order in which he served, on the front of the coin. The image on the reverse would be that of the Statue of Liberty, large enough to be dramatic but not so large as to create a so-called ``two-headed'' coin. The date, Mint mark, and other important mottos on the coin would be on the edge of the coin, leaving room on the faces for more dramatic artwork.

Working through concerns, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) raised last year, there is language that was drafted in consultation with the National Federation of the Blind to ensure seeing-impaired individuals would be able to distinguish the dollar coin from a quarter.

The educational aspects of this program are obvious. We all know George Washington was the first President, but how many can tell the exact dates of his service to the country? How about the dates of service of the famous Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant, who later became President? And how many in this Chamber can name the only President who would end up with two coins in the series because he served twice, in terms separated by another President's term?

This legislation also seeks to honor the First Spouses by creating a nearly pure-gold investment-grade bullion coin, the same diameter as the dollar coin, and half an ounce in weight, honoring the First Spouses who have done so much for our country. The U.S. Mint will also be able to make bronze medal replicas of the First Spouse gold bullion coin. This will enable school children and ordinary citizens an affordable option for collecting the First Spouse series. These bronze medal replicas will cost just a few dollars.

For the First Spouse coin, the obverse, as for the Presidential coins, would be the likeness of the spouse, terms of service, and the order in which they served. On the reverse would be images emblematic of the spouse's works. In the five instances to date in which Presidents had no spouses while in office, the educational part again, the bill calls for the image on the front of the coin to be that of an image, that of ``Liberty,'' as used on a U.S. coin circulating that President's term, and the reverse of the coin to carry images related to the President's term.

During President Chester Arthur's term, the image of Liberty would be represented by Alice Paul, a leading figure in the women's suffrage movement, who was born during Arthur's term. Other Presidents, such as President Wilson, have had more than one spouse while in office due to the death of a spouse and subsequent remarriage while still in office.

Finally, this legislation includes H.R. 767 as a second title. This legislation, introduced by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) and cosponsored by the entire Illinois delegation, will redesign the Lincoln penny in 2009 in celebration of the 200th anniversary of President Lincoln's birth. The redesign will feature four designs, each representing a different aspect of his life: first, his birth and early childhood in Kentucky; second, his formative years in Indiana; third, his professional life in Illinois; and, finally, his Presidency in Washington, DC.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for her work on this legislation, indeed there was a great deal of work, as well as the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), for their support.

I urge my colleagues to support this fun and educational program.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First, as a comment to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), he is tenacious, to say the least. We have been going through this with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for a year, or something of that nature, addressing a variety of issues.

Obviously, none of us wanted to see the Sacagawea coin not come back or fail or whatever. It will be continued, and I think it is our mutual hope that this program will accelerate the usage of these coins, and therefore it is going to be a coin when it does come back in full-blown issuance after all the Presidential coins are gone that will be used a heck of a lot more than it is now. So hopefully it is a win-win situation that we ended up with.

I thank the gentleman. It was all amiable, maybe a little frustrating at times, but all amiable.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot thank my cosponsor enough. She has also been tenacious in this, dealing with her side of the aisle when there were complications, smoothing those things over, plotting with me to get this done,

which we had to do from time to time. It has been a great pleasure to work with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) on this as well.

I would like to thank all the staff who worked on this legislation. It does seem like a relatively simple bill, but it is a little more complicated than one might think; and there was a lot of staff involvement. Obviously, Emily Pfeiffer on my staff I thank particularly, and Joe Pinder is truly an expert on coinage. I think he dreams about these coins and constantly he would come up with things I had not thought of, usually which we had to overcome in some way or another. But his institutional knowledge of coinage in the United States, which may not be exceeded in this country, is of extraordinary value to all of us as we deal with legislation such as that.

So we are pleased to be here. We think this is obviously very good legislation for a whole variety of reasons, every bit, hopefully, as good as the quarter legislation turned out to be.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the House is taking up this bill that Congressman Castle and I initiated, and I truly believe it is a win-win for taxpayers and the economy, the Presidential $1 Coin Bill.

As we recall, the House passed our version of this bill by an overwhelming bipartisan majority last April, and the Senate has now done the same with its version and sent it back here for final passage.

As our earlier vote reflects, this is an idea that we can all agree on. The Presidential dollar coin will begin in January of 2007 with the issuance of the George Washington dollar and continue at the rate of four Presidents a year until all Presidents who have completed their term of office have been honored, including President Bush and at least one successor.

The back of the coin has the Statue of Liberty, which is located in the harbor of the city I represent. It is recognized throughout the world as the image of the United States and the symbol of freedom and opportunity.

I am particularly pleased and thankful for discussions with Representative Pomeroy from North Dakota, Indian tribal chiefs and women's groups, on the provisions of the bill relating to the Sakakawea dollar coin that have been clarified, really strengthened, to make sure that Sakakawea will continue to be honored on the dollar throughout the program and after the program is complete. This is also true in the Senate version which we are voting on today.

This initiative builds on the remarkable success also led by my dear friend and colleague Congressman Castle of our 50 State quarter bill. Like the State quarters, the Presidential dollar coin will revive interest in and encourage use of the dollar coin, educate the public about our Presidents and their first ladies and make money for the taxpayers. After 5 years at the halfway point, the 50 State quarter program had made $4 billion for the United States Treasury, primarily from collectors taking the coins out of circulation so that the Federal Reserve then buys more from the Mint.

Over 130 million Americans, including children, adults and collectors, are collecting the quarters. I know from firsthand experience. My daughter is one of these collectors, and she has collected every single quarter, has books on them; her friends collect them. Teachers have told me that they use the quarter in their classrooms for educational purposes, and I believe that the Presidential dollar bill will likewise be used as an educational tool for collectors and for school children. We have similar hopes for the effect of the individuals collecting the Presidential dollar coins for them to be useful in the classroom and helpful to the Treasury.

In addition, this bill will revive interest in and encourage use of the dollar coin. The GAO has estimated that general use of dollar coins could save the government as much as $50 million per year because they last longer than the dollar bill.

I have received correspondence from small businesses, who are delighted that the bill will boost usage of the dollar coin in everyday commerce. As dollar coins achieve greater use in meters, fare machines, coin operated laundromats or car washes, these businesses will benefit and consumers will get faster and more efficient service.

We have done a great deal of research to make sure that this coin is successful. In the course of developing this bill, Congressman Castle reached out to the National Federation for the Blind to ask for the perspective of persons with visual impairments whom we might expect to have the most concern over problems with usage of a dollar coin and specifically with distinguishing it from a quarter. The NFB responded that so long as the edge of the coin was distinctive, persons with visual impairments would not have a problem, and we have accommodated that need. The legislation also leaves a great deal of flexibility to the Mint to

design the coins in such a way that they will be sufficiently distinctive, and we have made the Mint aware of this imperative.

I am also proud of the bill's provision for also honoring each first spouse. The bill provides for these to be issued both as gold bullion collectors items and also in a bronze version, making them more accessible to school children and the public.

This bill earns money for the government, benefits small businesses and consumers, educates all users of American currency about their Presidents and revitalizes interest in the dollar coin. I would call that a bill that clearly deserves our full support.

I would like to thank Congressman Castle for his initiative and steady work on this bill, a bill that should be supported easily by everyone. The fact is that it makes money for the Treasury, educates people and helps our economy, but we had many, many hurdles that we had to jump over, and his thoughtful and persistent work was absolutely critical for its success.

I also thank my good friend Representative Pomeroy for helping to make this a bill that continues to honor Sakakawea, both during the time that it is being minted and afterwards; and also our ranking member, Mr. Frank, for helping us to move this to the floor for a vote.

Of course, Congressman Oxley, we will miss you and miss your leadership in this body.

I would also like to thank Joe Pinder and Emily Pfeiffer on the majority staff of the Financial Services Committee for their assistance throughout this process.

And I would finally like to thank Jaime Lizarraga of the minority Financial Services Committee and Eleni Constantine for their work on it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support it. It is not often that we have an opportunity to vote on something that will educate adults and children about our history, put money into the Treasury, save taxpayers money, help small business, and it is just plain fun to collect. So I am thoroughly in support of it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr.

Pomeroy), who was instrumental in the passage of this bill. We thank him for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to speak to this bill. Let me just start by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, for expediting this. Sometimes it is not that easy to move along even good legislation. I also wish to thank the ranking member, Mr. Frank, who is on the floor, for his acceptance of this as well.

I cannot thank Carolyn Maloney enough for her exceptional work. You have to get a lot of signatures on these bills. You have to talk to a lot of people. We had a lot of negotiations with respect to some of the changes from Sakakawea to what we are trying to do, and I just cannot thank her enough for her constant support of it. I would bet we talked about this about 100 times in the course of the last couple years, if I had to guess.

I wish it were our bill and not the Senate version of our bill, though, but that is the way things go sometimes. We will still enjoy it.

I would also like to thank particularly Joe Pinder, who knows more about coins probably than anybody in the United States of America, as far as I can ascertain. He talked to me first about the other quarter bill, which I did not think was a particularly sound idea at the time. This was some 10 years ago now, I think. He talked to me about it again. Then he told me Delaware would be first because it was the first State to ratify the Constitution, and then he pointed out it would actually make some money for the Federal Government. By that time, I became convinced after several months of this, and we actually had to convince Secretary Rubin and Deputy Secretary Summers at that time. They thought the same thing I did; it was not a great idea. It turned out to be a very significant and good idea, as we all know now, for all the reasons that Mrs. Maloney and the chairman spoke about, educating a lot of people, and it has been a wonderfully fun program.

What a lot of people do not realize is these programs make money. That particular program has made $5 billion, billion with a ``B'' for the Federal Government so far, on its way to probably $8 billion to $10 billion before it is all said and done. It is a complicated process called seniorage, but essentially, they make the coins for 4 or 5 cents, and they sell them for 25 cents, obviously, when the public buys them from the Federal Reserve. And that amount of money, if the coins are not reclaimed, which they are not in the collectors' case, is money that we can use instead of having to appropriate money.

It is also estimated, I should point out, that this particular program which has multiple higher numbers, although there will be fewer coins distributed, we hope will make in the range of $4 to $5 billion as well. So we are talking about something which has a lot of benefit.

I would also like to thank Emily Pfeiffer, who started on my staff and now works for the committee. The committee, which has all this money and can pay higher salaries, I guess is what it is all about, took her away, but she has done some wonderful work on this as well.

This bill is unique. It has on the side edge incusing, which means on the side of the coin you are going to have what we have above you, Mr. Speaker: In God We Trust and E Pluribus Unum will be on there. It will be gold in color, and it will represent the various Presidents who served our country. It is going to be tremendously educational. There will be a First Lady coin; there will be gold bullion editions of these particular coins for collectors. We think it actually may help bring the dollar coin back into commerce. I see the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) on the floor, and a lot of our negotiations were with him and he was very concerned about the continuation of the recognition of Sakakawea. My hope is, frankly, this is going to add to that, because it is actually going to get the coins distributed when we revert to that program, and sometime later it will add to it as well.

I must say that I am concerned about what Senator Dorgan did put into the bill, because I prefer what we worked out in the House as a better solution to this, and that is an edition of the third of the coins now still to be Sakakawea, and I am afraid they are going to sit and collect dust and not be distributed.

At this point I would rather have done this differently. But we are working on that, and hopefully we will have a better solution to recognize the great American Indians and what they have done for us in this country before we are all said and done, even while this program is going on. I think there are perhaps better solutions than what the Senate actually did, but that is something we are not going to do unless we all agree. So I think we should pass this legislation, which is very good legislation; and if we can make it even better, we should come back and try to do that at some point in the future. We will continue to work on that.

These coins, the quarters I am referring to now, have been highly successful because of the children's involvement. It is my hope that the children are going to go into the store and ask for dollar coins in change. We think that is very significant in terms of what they might do and in terms of the circulation in the commerce. Four of these will be issued per year, that will be plenty, to make everybody start looking forward to them. Once they collected the one before, they will collect the other one. They will be coined at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints, so they will have the P and the D on them, and people might wish to collect both of them, as a matter of fact.

As a matter of fact, even the National Education Association has sent a letter in support of this bill. It is true, you do not find many bills here in which we actually make money which are educational, which are fun, which are well received by everybody; and that is essentially what this bill does. So I would just like to thank everybody who was involved and urge passage of the legislation hopefully unanimously in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill that the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and I have offered that is a win-win for taxpayers and the economy.

The Presidential Dollar Coin Act builds on the remarkable success of the 50 State Quarter Act of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), which is well into its 10-year run and has earned

praise from educators and coin collectors and benefited the Treasury. My daughters, like many young people across America, enjoy collecting this popular coin.

Like the State quarter bill, the Presidential dollar coin will educate Americans about our Presidents and our first ladies while making money for the taxpayers. In addition, this bill will encourage use of the Sacagawea dollar coin, which will continue to be issued throughout the program and will be the sole U.S. dollar coin after the program ends. Thanks to discussions with the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), Indian tribal chiefs and women's groups, the provisions of the bill relating to the Sacagawea dollar coin have been clarified and strengthened to assure that Sacagawea, the only woman on our currency at this present moment, will continue to be honored on the dollar coin.

In a similar vein, the bill also provides for commemorative coins honoring each first lady to be issued during the period that their husbands were President. These will be issued both as gold bullion collectors' items and also in a bronze version, making them more accessible to school children and the public.

I am particularly pleased that the bill provides for a coin to be issued in honor of the noted suffragette Alice Paul at the same time as the coin commemorating President Chester Arthur, who served without a spouse. As a New Yorker, I am particularly pleased that Lady Liberty, the international symbol of the United States, will be on the back of the coin.

The General Accounting Office has estimated that general use of dollar coins could save the government as much as $500 million per year because they last longer than the dollar bill. Boosting usage of the dollar coin in everyday commerce also helps small businesses and provides consumers with faster and better service.

At the halfway point of issuance, the 50-State Quarter program had made the government over $4 billion primarily from collectors taking the coins out of circulation so that the Federal Reserve then buys more from the Mint. We have similar expectations for the effect of individuals collecting the dollar coins.

This bill earns money for the government, benefits small businesses and consumers, educates all users of American currency about their Presidents and first ladies, and encourages wider use of the Sacagawea dollar coin. I would call that a bill that deserves our full support.

I particularly want to thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) for his work, not only on the quarter coin, which has been a huge success for our school children and our Nation and helped our economy, but his leadership and constant work on this bill, along with the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

I particularly thank Joe Pinder of the committee staff, who is really an expert on coins and has put a great deal of time and effort on this, along with Emily Pfeiffer from the staff of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and Eleni Constantin, my financial services counsel.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that this will pass overwhelmingly and be circulating soon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to thank the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) for his constant work on this bill and his support. We are very grateful. I believe the gentleman's input has made it a stronger bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back my time.