Lawmakers announce bill to eliminate penny production after Trump slams coin as 'wasteful'

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation Wednesday to eliminate the production of the penny, after President Donald Trump ordered the Treasury to do so in February.

The “Common Cents Act” would require the Treasury to stop minting pennies and require cash transactions to be rounded up or down to the nearest five cents. Pennies would still be legal tender under the bill, but they would no longer be produced except when “appropriate solely to meet the needs of numismatic collectors of the one-cent coin.”