Weller – who disclosed to ABC News that he is also a lobbyist for companies in various industries, including Artazn, a Tennessee-based manufacturer of zinc products, some of which are used in making pennies – said doing away with the penny would prompt the U.S. Mint to increase production of the nickel. ????? ???????

"It would be bad for consumers and it would be bad for the economy. It really would, in fact, not save money, but it would increase government losses and have some unintended economic consequences," Weller said. ????????????  

Mark Weller is executive director of Americans for Common Cents, a Washington, D.C., organization that provides research to Congress and the executive branch on the benefits of the penny. He told ABC News that he believes eliminating the coin "is an absolutely horrible idea." ?????  

The penny will become the 12th U.S. currency denomination to be retired, joining the half-cent coin, the 2-cent coin, the 20-cent piece and the "trime" – a silver three-cent piece issued from 1851 to 1873, Caroline Turco, assistant curator of the Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, told ABC News. ????? ???????  

However, Laurence H. Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School, told the Associated Press in February that the U.S. Code, a list of general and permanent federal statues, gives Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the authority to scrap the penny. ????????????