[House Hearing, 115 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] THE FUTURE OF MONEY: COINS AND BANKNOTES ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON MONETARY POLICY AND TRADE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ SEPTEMBER 5, 2018 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services Serial No. 115-113 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] _________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 31-573 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES JEB HENSARLING, Texas, Chairman PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina, MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking Vice Chairman Member PETER T. KING, New York CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York EDWARD R. ROYCE, California NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma BRAD SHERMAN, California STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York BILL POSEY, Florida MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin DAVID SCOTT, Georgia STEVE STIVERS, Ohio AL GREEN, Texas RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota ANN WAGNER, Missouri ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado ANDY BARR, Kentucky JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania BILL FOSTER, Illinois LUKE MESSER, Indiana DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio MIA LOVE, Utah DENNY HECK, Washington FRENCH HILL, Arkansas JUAN VARGAS, California TOM EMMER, Minnesota JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey LEE M. ZELDIN, New York VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan CHARLIE CRIST, Florida BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio TED BUDD, North Carolina DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana Shannong McGahn, Staff Director Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade ANDY BARR, Kentucky, Chairman ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas, Vice GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, Ranking Chairman Member FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan BILL FOSTER, Illinois ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina BRAD SHERMAN, California MIA LOVE, Utah AL GREEN, Texas FRENCH HILL, Arkansas DENNY HECK, Washington TOM EMMER, Minnesota DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia JUAN VARGAS, California WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio CHARLIE CRIST, Florida CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on: September 5, 2018............................................ 1 Appendix: September 5, 2018............................................ 33 WITNESSES Wednesday, September 5, 2018 Olijar, Leonard R., Director, Bureau of Engraving and Printing.. 5 Ryder, David J., Director, United States Mint................... 7 APPENDIX Prepared statements: Olijar, Leonard R........................................... 34 Ryder, David J.............................................. 84 Additional Material Submitted for the Record Barr, Hon. Andy: Written statement from Sonecon............................... 92 THE FUTURE OF MONEY: COINS AND BANKNOTES ---------- Wednesday, September 5, 2018 U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade, Committee on Financial Services, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Andy Barr [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives Barr, Williams, Lucas, Huizenga, Pittenger, Love, Hill, Emmer, Mooney, Davidson, Tenney, Hollingsworth, Moore, Foster, Sherman, Green, Kildee, and Vargas. Chairman Barr. The subcommittee will come to order. Without objection the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the Committee at any time. All members will have 5 legislative days within which to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in the record. This hearing is entitled, ``The Future of Money: Coins and Banknotes.'' I now recognize myself for 4 minutes to give an opening statement. Despite all the focus on innovative ways to exchange value or settle transactions, Bitcoin, Apple Pay, Venmo, and dozens more and with the increasing use of credit and debit cards, coins and currency still are a major factor in our retail economy. Cash may not be king anymore but it is still royalty and many Americans have a little of it in their pocket or purse right now. Even so, there is a really large amount of United States coins and banknotes circulating, all $1.7 trillion or so of it produced by one of two bureaus of the Treasury Department: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which prints Federal Reserve notes and the United States Mint, which makes our circulating coins as well as some investor and collector coins. The nearly 4,000 people who work at those bureaus do a terrific job. That being said, it is up to Congress to ensure that the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing remain effective and efficient and have adequate plans for the future, a future where innovative payment options are likely to multiply and usage likely to grow. To that end, today the Monetary Policy Subcommittee welcomes the directors of the two bureaus to continue that discussion. There are real issues, real issues that have real impacts on both the economy and the Treasury's General Fund in the near-term and, particularly, in the long-term. One of those issues, that Congress has been prodding the Mint on for a decade, is the cost to produce circulating coins. The penny and the nickel both cost considerably more than their face value to produce. Thirty years ago, Canada and the United Kingdom changed to steel coins plated to look and function like their previous coins which in turn saved a lot of money and now these countries contract manufacture coins for a number of other countries. Why hasn't the United States been the leader? Why didn't we emulate them when their move turned out to be successful? Have we just wasted tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for no good reason? There are other coin-related issues, Congressman Mooney has been a leader in pointing out that there is an increasing problem of counterfeit copies of the Mint's American Eagle investment coins, a problem that defrauds both investors and dealers. Again, other Mints around the world have inserted anti-counterfeiting technology into their bullion but the U.S. Mint hasn't, why not? To be sure in our discussions with the Secret Service, there are anti-counterfeiting measures that have been put into place but we want to explore improvements in that area. Additionally, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing would like a new printing plant to replace its well-known one just down the street. That is potentially a reasonable request but more work probably needs to be done on cost controls and on pinpointing future banknote demand. Right now, spending close to $1.5 billion dollars to save $40 million a year makes sense if demand for banknotes stays the same until maybe 2050 but not everyone imagines that demand will hold up. Finally, I hope that we will hear that the bureaus have contingency plans for the possibility that the demand for all cash and coins could dry up fairly quickly. It is unknown whether we are moving that rapidly to a cashless society but it is worthy of exploration. If that were to happen over just a few years, we would have about 4,000 employees and four major factories to think about repurposing. Additionally, the ability of the U.S. Mint to collect seigniorage from coins could be greatly reduced, ultimately increasing the Federal Government's deficit by hundreds of millions of dollars annually and there may be logistical difficulties with converting paper and coin money into another currency medium. I don't see that happening anytime soon, if at all, but someone needs to be thinking about it and I hope the directors can give us a hint about such plans. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the gentlelady from Wisconsin, Gwen Moore for 5 minutes for an opening statement. Ms. Moore. Let me join the Chairman in welcoming our esteemed witnesses for the day. As I was cleaning my bedroom and picking up all the pennies on the floor, this is a very appropriate time to talk about this matter, finding a little jar to put them in. I would yield the balance of my time to Mr. Sherman from California. Mr. Sherman. Thank you. Most transactions are through an electronic payment system. We have to make sure that remains in U.S. control. If we push Europe too hard they will invent a system to close major oil and other major transactions without touching U.S. soil or perhaps U.S. currency. ``Future of Money'' is not cyber and as the Chairman points out the seigniorage is very valuable to the United States, we should not lose it nor should we create a method of payment that, while it can be used and is often used for legitimate transactions, is particularly well designed for tax evasion and the evasion of sanctions legislation. As to the currency we can actually touch, as long as we have a paper dollar people will not use a dollar coin. We would save an awful lot of money at the Federal level if people would use a dollar coin because it costs so much to make a paper dollar, it doesn't last that long or doesn't last nearly as long as a coin, after all we have coins from the Roman Empire; coins last a long time. But the real savings of having a society in which people carry dollar coins will be its use by transit systems and vending machines, although gradually our technology is taking us beyond the need for a coin in either of those cases. We ought to abolish the penny. It is not inflationary. If a merchant is going to charge you 23 cents for an orange and round it up to 25, then buy two oranges for 46 cents and round it down to 45 cents. Every transaction we engage in is actually a rounded transaction because when you apply State and local sales tax to a transaction, you never bought anything at a store that was exactly $6.92, there was tax, it was six dollars ninety-two point three cents and the merchant rounded it to the nearest penny. If we can round to a penny, we can round to a nickel. I know the Illinois delegation has historically favored retaining the penny because it has Abraham Lincoln on it. Back when a penny was worth something, as it was in Lincoln's day, it was an honor to be on the penny. Today if you were to scatter pennies around the room you would not be enriching those who walk by, a penny on the ground is litter. So if we abolish the penny there is room in the cash register for a dollar coin, we save a lot of zinc, a little bit of copper, or a fair amount of money and we do not make transactions at the store more difficult nor do I think that any merchant will calculate the price of an orange on the theory that you will buy just one and that you will owe 23 cents and it will get rounded up to 25 cents which you can always buy two oranges, they are delicious and they come from California. I will yield back the balance of my time back to the Ranking Member. Ms. Moore. I am excited to hear your testimony and I yield back. Chairman Barr. The Ranking Member yields back the balance of her time. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. Mooney for 1 minute for an opening statement. Mr. Mooney. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Welcome Director Olijar and Director Ryder, I really appreciate you being here, look forward to working with you in the future, getting a better understanding of how the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Mint view the future of the U.S. currency. I thank the Chairman for his comments. I have taken a special interest in coins and fraudulent attempts from other countries. I have been concerned about what has been without question a lack of attention to address the growing problem of high-quality counterfeits coming from China and elsewhere but especially China. They seem to want to hack, steal our intellectual property, counterfeit, they seem to be very, extra, extra good at coming to this country and causing problems. It is important that we secure U.S. coins, minted of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium which happens to be the only sound money currency minted in the United States. I did recently meet with the Secret Service to discuss their role in combating counterfeit currency flooding our market. During our meeting they reported they have been working on at least 15 major cases over the past 2 years. The Secret Service did voice some frustration about obtaining support from the U.S. Mint when it comes to investigating and curtailing the growing counterfeiting problem. Since that meeting and sharing information with the U.S. Mint, I have really not seen evidence that the U.S. Mint intends to meet the standards set by several foreign mints who have adopted various anti-counterfeiting technologies that are in existence and in use very effectively. In addition to discussing the anti-counterfeiting measures, I hope to hear from both of you, both directors, regarding the stability of the U.S. currency, how we can ensure a strong and stable currency for the American public, through sound Monetary Policy which may also include a discussion of returning to the gold standard; I have a bill that does that, ``and not relying solely on the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government,'' quote/unquote. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to hear from Director Olijar and Director Ryder on this important issue. Chairman Barr. The gentleman's time has expired. Today we welcome the testimony of Director Olijar, who became the Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in May 2015, after serving as the BEP's Deputy Director, from 2012 to 2014. Mr. Olijar began his career at the BEP 30 years ago in 1988 as a Systems Accountant and rapidly advanced. In 2006 Mr. Olijar was appointed the Chief Financial Officer of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Mr. Olijar graduated magna cum laude from the University of Colorado in 1987. He received the Gold Medal Award for the highest score in Virginia on the Certified Public Accountant Exam and scored in the top 1 percent in the Nation. Mr. Olijar resides in Northern Virginia with his wife and two daughters. We also welcome Director Ryder, who is the 39th United States Mint Director. Mr. Ryder also led the Mint as its 34th Director from September 1992 to November 1993, during the Administrations of President George H. W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. Most recently Ryder was the Global Business Development Manager and Managing Director of Currency for Honeywell Authentication Technologies. Previously, Ryder served as the CEO of Secure Products Corporation which was acquired by Honeywell in 2007. In addition to the United States Mint, Ryder's prior government service included Deputy Treasurer of the United States; Deputy Chief of Staff to Vice President Dan Quayle; and Assistant to Vice President George H. W. Bush. Mr. Ryder attended Boise State University and is married with two children. Each of you will be recognized for 5 minutes to give an oral presentation of your testimony. Without objection each of your written statements will be made part of the record. Director Olijar you are now recognized for 5 minutes. STATEMENT OF LEONARD OLIJAR Mr. Olijar. Thank you. Good morning Chairman Barr, Ranking Member Moore, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me here today to testify about the many improvements underway at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The BEP produces United States currency notes in Fort Worth, Texas, and downtown Washington, D.C. I am honored to lead BEP. I am proud to say we continue to be very successful at meeting the Nation's and the world's demand for currency. Demand for U.S. currency remains strong. There are now more than 42 billion notes in circulation with a value of more than $1.7 trillion and cash in circulation continues to grow almost 5 percent per year. Approximately 7 billion notes have been ordered annually for the past decade. Up to two-thirds of the value of U.S. currency is held overseas where our currency is the world's currency. It is the most trusted international store value and serves as a hedge against uncertainties, natural disasters, and political turmoil. In the U.S. the use of cash has been resilient. While several small countries set a goal of going cashless, they have recently recognized that a cashless society presents a significant economic risk and neglects to serve those who do not have access to smartphones, computers, banks, and credit. I believe the 21st century warfare has a significant cyber component and these countries are now recognizing the risks. If your enemy is able to take down your electronic infrastructure or a natural disaster hits, there will be no way to conduct commerce in a cashless environment, crippling the economy. The FDIC estimates that 7 percent of U.S. households are unbanked and almost 20 percent are under-banked, as a result over 45 million U.S. households do not have access to the payment systems that are most often used in lieu of cash. In my 30 years at BEP, the composition of our currency has changed significantly with the addition of complex, covert, and overt security features to address domestic and international counterfeiting threats. It is the development of these security features that drives the timeline for introduction of a new currency series. I am happy to say that less than one one- hundredth of 1 percent of notes in circulation are counterfeit. BEP works collaboratively through the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrent Steering Committee, with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Secret Service, and the Treasury Department to develop counterfeit deterrent features for U.S. currency. Potential features are subject to adversarial analysis at our national labs. The ACD Committee recommends security features and designs to the Secretary of the Treasury, who has final authority. BEP continues to implement more efficient, cost-effective, manufacturing processes. We develop custom machines that combine four manufacturing steps into one and, now, transition printing $1 notes from 32-subject sheets to 50-subject sheets and ultimately every denomination will be printed on a larger sheet size. Other strategic investments include robotic palletizers and new equipment that allows BEP to reclaim good notes from defective sheets. Together these efficiencies have saved us over $100 million. Currency production equipment has grown dramatically in complexity and size over the past 20 years. Moreover, the next family of currency will have new overt and covert security features which will require new production equipment to apply. We are expanding the Fort Worth facility to accommodate this equipment, it will not fit inside the current Washington, D.C. facilities, two obsolete, six-story, multi-wing buildings that have no security perimeters. We are seeking statutory authority to use the BEP revolving fund to construct a smaller, more efficient, and more secure production facility to replace our existing Washington facilities. Our legislative proposal has strong support from OMB. Director Mulvaney has listed it as a critical priority for the Administration and of course it is budget neutral. A new facility will cost almost $600 million less than renovating the existing space. It will shrink our Federal footprint by 27 percent and lower operating costs by at least $38 million annually. The GAO (Government Accountability Office) looked at the Bureau's most recent facility study and, in a report released this year, GAO's own review and analysis strongly supports the Bureau's recommendation to construct a new facility, in lieu of renovating existing space. No action has been taken on facility studies over the past 25 years and doing nothing is no longer an option without jeopardizing BEP's mission and the U.S. currency program. Our currency program returns more than $50 billion a year to the Treasury and is a cornerstone of the global economy. It is our hope that this committee will support the need for a smaller, more efficient facility. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks about some of the initiatives of BEP and I will be happy to take questions from you or the committee members. Thank you for your time this morning. [The prepared statement of Mr. Olijar can be found on page 34 of the appendix.] Chairman Barr. Thank you, Mr. Olijar. Mr. Ryder you are now recognized for 5 minutes for an opening statement. STATEMENT OF DAVID RYDER Mr. Ryder. Thank you, Chairman Barr, and Ranking Member Moore. It is a privilege for me to be here today address your concerns. The Mint performs three primary missions. We produce coins at sufficient levels to meet daily needs of Commerce. We also manufacture numismatic and bullion products as well as safeguard our national assets. I visited and held town hall meetings in all four production facilities since being appointed Director about 5 months ago. This workforce is well-equipped, enthusiastic, engaged, and committed. At any one of these facilities you will find safety statistics and a level of morale that rivals the very best in private industry. Our employees make use of cutting-edge technology in three key production phases: Design, manufacturing, and packaging. Robotic technology has improved production in die manufacturing. While a series of robotic arms boosted proof- coin packaging from 600 to 1,800 units per hour. By the end of this year we should expect to produce 13.9 billion circulating coins and more than 2.8 million numismatic items. The Federal Reserve demand for currency coins will continue to fluctuate due to economic cycles. To manage market uncertainty, the Mint has identified and executed state-of-the-art manufacturing processes. Although the unit cost for pennies and nickels is above face value, lean practices have put the Mint on track to return $250 million to the Treasury General Fund in Fiscal Year 2018. The Mint is collaborating with the Federal Reserve to explore cost-reduction strategies for the penny. We are also evaluating potential savings from alternative metals with the 5-, 10-, and 25-cent denominations. Since 1982, Congress has authorized 71 commemorative programs that have generated more than $522 million in surcharges. In order to continue the success of these programs, I feel that it is necessary for the Mint to work closely with Congress during the legislative development process to identify Commemorative Coin programs that actually work better for our customers. We are also eager to start a dialog for a successor of the circulating Commemorative Quarter program before the current America the Beautiful Quarters program ends in 2021. Over the past 10 years, the Mint's numismatic customer base has declined from 1.2 million customers to approximately 500,000 today. The Mint is developing and marketing a sales strategy aimed at increasing awareness and promoting our products much more broadly to our depleting customer base that we need to take care of. The United States Mint is the world's largest manufacturer of gold and silver bullion coins. Beginning in 2017, demand for both gold and silver bullion coins worldwide slumped dramatically as investors apparently focused on other investments. In the last couple of months, demand has shown signs of stabilizing. We have adjusted our production levels to be in line with market demand. I believe that for the foreseeable future, coins will remain important instruments for settling financial transactions. However, with expanded cryptocurrency options on the horizon the importance of their seriousness, studies cannot be underestimated. The Mint is developing anti-counterfeiting measures for our bullion products. I have assembled a team within the Mint who will develop a multilevel approach including customer awareness, new secure product-packaging features, as well as product integration protections. As part of the alternative metals research and development, the Mint is actively seeking feedback from industry stakeholders who may be impacted in areas such as vending, parking meters, coin-operated laundry, amusement, public transportation, banking, and supermarkets. Helping our youth understand the role of coins can be a gateway for financial awareness. The Mint has developed a first-class website at www.usmint.gov. The site contains lesson plans and interactive activities that help kids understand the importance of saving their hard-earned money and enable them to take control of their own economics. The Mint is privileged to connect America through coins and medals which reflect the remarkable history, values, culture, and natural beauty of our Nation. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your interest in the mission of the United States Mint. I will be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Ryder can be found on page 84 of the appendix.] Chairman Barr. Thank you, Mr. Ryder for your testimony. The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes for questioning. Let me start with you Mr. Ryder. Congress has been prodding the Mint for a decade or more to find a less expensive way to produce circulating coins that could and would co-circulate with existing ones. Many other countries notably Canada, and the United Kingdom, as I pointed out in my opening statement, figured out how to do this seamlessly and effectively as much as 30 years ago. What is the current status of this effort at the Mint and how much taxpayer money could be saved if the Mint were to move to steel or some other less expensive formulation? Mr. Ryder. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. The Mint is actively and has actively been researching alternate metals. We have identified one particular metal that we call our 80-20 composition, that it is 77 percent copper, 20 percent nickel, and 3 percent zinc. The cost savings of that program would be about $4.1 million if we introduced that program with the nickel, dime, and the quarter. Another alternative metal that we are looking at is more of a 50-50 blend. We are in the initial stages of trying to run that product through its courses with the vending machine industry and other stakeholders. That particular program we believe would save over $16 million a year in cost savings. It is probably 1-1/2 to 2 years away from being realized but we are endeavoring to undertake those two issues and try to move them out to the general public. Chairman Barr. Can you take those actions administratively on your own initiative without Congressional action? Mr. Ryder. It has to be Congressional action. We have submitted through our budget process legislative language that will allow the Secretary to make that decision. I have briefed the Secretary on both of these alternatives and I believe he is supportive. Chairman Barr. OK. Thank you very much. Mr. Olijar, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is on record as seeing constant and improving demand for banknotes at least the next decade, and your testimony talked about the risks associated with electronic transactions. But others, including the Chicago Fed, believe that externalities including the improving economy and new technologies may work against that particularly in out-years. What is your projection for banknote demand in the near and longer-term, 2-years, 10-years, 20-years, will people still be using as much cash say in 2040? Mr. Olijar. Our projection is that cash is going to continue to remain a viable mechanism for payment and store value. The challenges that come with payment mechanisms are if there are a significant amount of them, but it really hasn't impacted currency demand to date. People have a preference for using cash. As I mentioned there is a large, under-banked population in this country, that has a significant preference and has no access to alternative payment mechanisms. Chairman Barr. Let me move on to the proposal for a new plant. I have looked at the GAO report and they do compliment you in some regards for following good practices and then they have some constructive suggestions for you all as you pursue this idea. When the plant in Fort Worth was opened, the land, the infrastructure, and the building were donated with the understanding that a large number of good jobs would arrive with the new facility. My question on this most recent proposal on a new facility is whether or not the Bureau has pursued a similar model for its plans to replace the D.C. facility, specifically whether or not you are looking at States that may be willing to save the Bureau money by donating the lands with the expectation that jobs would be located there and what is the status of that and if you are not pursuing that, a donation concept, why not? Mr. Olijar. To date we have not pursued a donation concept. We are open to pursuing that. The initial look we did with respect to the facility location was existing Federal facilities in the Washington, D.C. area, when we were going to use GSA's (General Services Administration) Exchange Authority. When GSA put a stop to using the Exchange Authority because they didn't feel that they were receiving value, we decided to pursue a different option. We are open to looking at pursuing an option like we did with Washington or Fort Worth facility and getting a donated land and facility. Key requirements for us is that we do want to remain on the East Coast. Primary shipments for us go to the East Rutherford, Federal Reserve Center. We need to be near an airport. But we can put our requirements out and work with GSA to identify anybody that would be interested in donating land and facility. Chairman Barr. Thank you. I look forward to working with you on ways in which we can make this work for everyone in a cost-effective manner. My time has expired and so I now yield 5 minutes to the Ranking Member, the gentlelady from Wisconsin, Ms. Moore. Ms. Moore. Thank you so much Mr. Chairman. Thank you, and I appreciate your comments about just the impracticality of going to a totally cashless society because people are unbanked, under-banked, children, and certainly merchants that maybe have pop-up vending products that really would not be able to handle a cashless enterprise. That being said, I want to just ask a little bit. I noticed from your testimony that you have costed out the price of pennies and nickels and it is one eighty-second of a cent to produce the penny and 6.6 cents for the nickel. I just want to know with what economists or marketing people, do you consult, with regard to the practicality of getting rid of either the penny and particularly the nickel? It is one thing to round up or down with a penny but you start rounding out nickels and it will add costs, so to whom do you interface in order to evaluate whether or not it is possible to get rid of a nickel in particular or a penny? Mr. Ryder. Sure. My primary interface is the Federal Reserve Bank so we have been meeting regularly on this issue, the penny and the nickel. We have had quite a number of meetings. It is my goal, I should say, our goal, to reach a conclusion on what to do with the penny before the end of the year. It might take quite a bit longer than that to implement whatever plan we do, but in regards to the penny I believe there are quite a number of pennies out in circulation that are not circulating. One of our goals is to try to get the general public to circulate more of those pennies. The banks that hold them along with the armored carriers that hold them, need to start circulating some of those pennies and not depend on brand new pennies that are coming out of our facilities. If we can really improve the circulation and get them back into circulation, the cost to produce pennies is going to go down because I would hope to see it go from 7 billion currently to somewhere in a manageable number of the 2 to 3 billion pennies a year to satisfy the Federal Reserve requirements. Ms. Moore. The nickel? Mr. Ryder. The nickel as you said, is correct. It costs more than a nickel to make a nickel. I don't have the authority to disregard the nickel. But again, we will work with the Federal Reserve on measures to reduce cost. Circulation is not as much of an issue with the nickel. With our alternative metals, I believe we can introduce new metals in the coming years that will reduce that cost significantly and bring it down in line with the cost to produce. Ms. Moore. The topic of the need for a new facility, obviously this has been costed out and the current or projected use of coins is factored into that so we can afford a new facility in your estimation? Mr. Olijar. Yes. I believe that we can afford. One of the criteria driving the need for a new facility is the constraints that exist in the existing facility aren't going to enable us to add the new security features that are going to be coming with the redesigned currency and maintaining the confidence of the currency is the essence of-- Ms. Moore. But this is with program revenue, not any appropriation from Congress, you can build the facility? Mr. Olijar. That is correct. There would be no appropriation from Congress. We would include it in the billing rates for the Federal Reserve for our currency. Ms. Moore. OK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back my time. Chairman Barr. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now recognizes the Vice Chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Williams for 5 minutes. Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this important hearing on the Future of Money in the United States. Our economy is booming and thankfully Americans are consuming, spending, and saving more than ever before. While we encourage and work to foster this historic growth we must also scrutinize our current systems, keep what is working, reform what is not. This subcommittee has focused on issues that are important to the American people and most importantly paid close attention to how the Federal Government spends the taxpayer's money. It is my hope that this morning we can have a discussion on the U.S. Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing, how they are doing, what are the good things they are doing, and how we can improve upon what they are doing and how we can establish and support best practices for the foreseeable future. I look forward to this hearing and I appreciate our witnesses being here and in full disclosure, I am from Fort Worth, Texas. First question, Director Olijar, I am sure many people followed the proposal, removing Andrew Jackson or Alexander Hamilton from Federal Reserve notes. Where does this issue stand? Mr. Olijar. The Secretary of the Treasury has final design authority with respect to United States currency. At this time, we are focused on the next denominations to be redesigned, which are the 10 and the 50. Mr. Williams. OK. It seems though any decision on this subject would be controversial but a decision probably has to be made as part of the banknote redesign schedule so what is the decision or what is the timeline, that you think we will have? Mr. Olijar. Our estimate is that we need a decision with respect to the $20 note in 2021 to enable us to be in production and introduce a redesigned currency by 2026. Mr. Williams. OK. Another question, the United States dollar is particularly strong right now and two-thirds of U.S. $100 notes are thought to be circulating overseas, so what is the state of counterfeiting of Federal Reserve notes these days? Mr. Olijar. As I mentioned, counterfeiting today is less than one one-hundredth of a percent of the notes that are in circulation. That said, the significant threat that we face in counterfeiting is the casual counterfeiter has emerged as the primary focus. Those are the folks that are using their personal computer and inkjet printer to scan and print a note. That is why we are redesigning the currency and coming up with state-of-the-art security features to thwart that. Mr. Williams. Will you say is that problem increasing, decreasing, stable? Mr. Olijar. Overall counterfeiting remains relatively stable. But it used to be, that it was large printing shops, it has now become the small individual and a lot more of them are doing it. Mr. Williams. You just touched on what I was going to ask you, so is counterfeit produced in specific places or passed more in specific places? Mr. Olijar. Counterfeiters typically target the larger retailers that don't have automated equipment; individual cashiers; small businesses where people aren't as knowledgeable about the currency and don't know the security features to look for in what is there today. Mr. Williams. OK. Finally, is the Secret Service still emphasizing an anti-counterfeiting mission the way it once did? Mr. Olijar. The Secret Service, BEP, the Department of Treasury, all work very collaboratively to keep the Nation's currency secure. Yes, they are aggressively helping us fight counterfeiting, especially in the international markets where you do see the larger counterfeiters. Mr. Williams. And also, I will just make a statement because we have touched on the Fort Worth model, if that is what you want to call it, for future expansion, is certainly the way to go. It works does it not? Mr. Olijar. Yes, it works very well. I would love to follow that model and we could actually make some improvements on that model. That was a facility opened-- Mr. Williams. Maybe bringing more business to Fort Worth? Mr. Olijar. Yes. Mr. Williams. Might be an improvement. Mr. Olijar. We are doing a significant expansion in Fort Worth already to accommodate the new equipment. Mr. Williams. OK. And just in closing, Director Ryder, I want to thank you for the experience you bring with the Mint and your views and so forth. Tell me one more time, before my time is up, what does it cost to make a penny? Mr. Ryder. Right now, it is about two pennies. Mr. Williams. But the nickel? Mr. Ryder. About 6.3. Mr. Williams. Yes. Sounds like you are in the car business. I want to thank you all for being here, appreciate your involvement. I yield my time back, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Barr. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman. Mr. Sherman. Mr. Olijar, impressive results on the Virginia CPA exam. Mr. Olijar. Thank you. Mr. Sherman. We have other countries in the same business, countries like ours, like Japan, the E.U., Canada, Great Britain, what is their smallest unit of paper money in those countries? Mr. Olijar. I am not sure but it is generally above a dollar. Mr. Sherman. I am used to $2 to $5 because they have discovered that if you don't have a dollar bill, people will use the dollar coin and they will save a lot of the money that we are talking about here. Mr. Ryder, I know you are going to be coming up with a report on the penny by the end of the year, my guess is that you won't do it but I am going to suggest that you simply abolish the penny. It is not currency, it is litter. Literally if a police officer saw me throw pennies on the ground, I would get a ticket for littering and if I tried to pay that ticket in pennies, the judge would be very upset. There will be the issue that somehow when transactions are rounded, that that would be inflationary or somehow the merchant would benefit. If you buy something for $1.98 in a State with a 7 percent sales tax, you are already rounding to the nearest penny, you actually owe the merchant $2.1186 and it gets rounded to $2.12 so you are rounding up. If you buy four of those items instead then with sales tax you round down. The penny has been our lowest unit of currency since 1857, since Lincoln, now he would not throw pennies on the ground and call it litter because back then a penny was worth more than a dollar is today, I believe, certainly well more than 50 cents. Are you considering abolishing the penny? Mr. Ryder. No. sir. Mr. Sherman. Would you? Even after that impassioned rhetoric from the gentleman from California? Mr. Ryder. I actually just this morning off the Metro, picked up a penny. I always seem to pick pennies up wherever I go but it is not my decision to abolish the penny. I will comply with regulations if and when, but right now it doesn't seem that the American population wants to get rid of the penny. If we had to round, the inclination will be to round up. Mr. Sherman. No. The rules--we round every transaction, in every State with a sales tax, and the computers and before that, little paper charts that the agency I used to run distributed. We round up or we round down based upon whether it is over 0.5 or under 0.5. We can certainly mandate by law that if it was exactly half a penny you round down. Mr. Ryder. My personal opinion I think rounding affects the people that least can afford it and-- Mr. Sherman. But every person who can least afford it has their transactions rounded, every time they buy anything, in any State with a sales tax. Mr. Ryder. True. Mr. Sherman. OK. Let us see. I will ask your colleague there, what steps you are taking in designing the currency particularly the $5 bill, the $1 bill but all currency to make sure that the changes you make are consistent with vending machines that read currency? Mr. Olijar. We are prohibited by statute from redesigning the $1 note so at this point in time we have no plans for a redesign on that. With respect to the $5 note, we have a very active interaction with the BEM, the Banknote Equipment Manufacturing community. We share proposed designs with them. We give them at least 18 months to modify their equipment. We seek their feedback on security features that we add specifically for the Banknote Equipment Manufacturers to use because-- Mr. Sherman. This is the same equipment that is used in the vending machines as well? Mr. Olijar. Correct. Mr. Sherman. OK. I would point out that in your testimony you folks are talking about saving $4 million, saving $16 million and a million dollars is a lot of money, it sounds like a lot of money but compared to the cost in this economy of having people carry money and coins, of having machines count money, of having vending machines either work or not work, just the psychological cost of having to hire a psychiatrist to talk to you about the incredible anger that you have when the machines won't give you your potato chips. Those costs dwarf the $4 million and the $16 million, I would hope. Is it your mandate to come up with the best decisions for society or just whatever cost your agency the least money? Mr. Olijar. We focus on society. The cost of the electronic transaction and electronic fraud is much more significant than the cost of counterfeiting or the cost borne by businesses of today. Mr. Sherman. Well, yes. Chairman Barr. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair now recognizes the Chairman of the Capital Markets Subcommittee, Mr. Huizenga. Mr. Huizenga. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to welcome you here. Just while we are on this subject that Mr. Sherman was just talking about, how much of a consideration is really given to the equipment manufacturers, vendors, and the folks that utilize these, whether it is coins or paper money, on a daily basis? How much weight is given to their opinions on content as they need to go in and maybe change how a machine would read a coin or read a dollar? Talk a little bit about that process if you would? Mr. Olijar. With respect to currency, there are a significant number of conferences where we have an opportunity to sit down with the equipment vendors. One of the things that they share with us is the particular version of counterfeit notes that they see and how their machines are being reverse- engineered so that we can work collaboratively with them to enhance the security of our designs. We have a very significant outreach to them. They are one of the front line of defenses in fighting counterfeit so we want to work collaboratively. Mr. Huizenga. Mr. Ryder? Mr. Ryder. With regard to the Mint, we rely heavily on our vendors and machine manufacturers. Behind me there are two gentlemen from Coinstar that have about 17,000 machines in the industry today that count coins and whatnot, in supermarkets. We also work with many of our other vendors when we are doing metal evaluation of our different products to ensure that the machines work well with our products, they cohabitate well. We depend heavily on those vendors. Mr. Huizenga. That is a pretty dynamic relationship? Mr. Ryder. Yes. Mr. Huizenga. I know that has been cited, however, in the past, reluctance to move from a paper dollar or $5 banknote to those coins, changing those systems, but it sounds like those systems are continually reviewed and in demand from the manufacturing side. I am going to move on to a letter, this is a theme, it is not particularly new, but this is a letter that I had sent in September 2016 to a Comptroller generally, a U.S. GAO and when I had the privilege of chairing this particular subcommittee, talking about the building and the desire at the time to move the Mint. One of the things I was really quite curious about though was the BEP had foregone at least $200 million in maintenance on its current D.C. facility and it seems quite a big number and I believe it begs the question of how well all BEP facilities or any new one would be cared for. If you could address that issue? Then I am curious how did it occur? How did we get $200 million behind? Was BEP underpricing their services, their printing fee, charges to the Federal Reserve or was the Federal Reserve refusing some of those charges? How did we get $200 million behind in maintenance? Mr. Olijar. A significant amount of that maintenance actually goes back to being deferred into the late 1990's when I was the CFO of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. As I have mentioned we have done three facility studies and prior to making, I will say, significant infrastructure investments we had the hope that we would be able to move forward on a replacement facility rather than continuing to put money into a facility that would not provide us with the operational efficiencies that a new one would give us so we deferred maintenance. We have done three facility studies in the past 25 years. Our hope is that we can get a smaller more efficient manufacturing facility. The deferred maintenance that we are talking about exists primarily in Washington, D.C. We have not deferred maintenance in the Fort Worth modern facility that we have today. Mr. Huizenga. Yes. Real quickly, my time is running out. Are we really going to need two factories for banknotes in 25 years? Mr. Olijar. I believe it is in the Nation's interest, as does the Federal Reserve and the Department of Treasury to have two manufacturing facilities for what is the world's currency today. Putting all of our eggs in one basket, presents a significant security risk. Mr. Huizenga. Do you have some third-party studies or anything that could demonstrate that? Mr. Olijar. With respect to security? Mr. Huizenga. Has anybody looked at what that means outside of just internally, both the need for the sheets, the security situation, the entire package of why a second facility would be necessary? Mr. Olijar. GAO did a comprehensive review of our most recent study that was done and they support the need for a more efficient manufacturing facility, in lieu of-- Mr. Huizenga. With real indulgence are people going to be able to go tour it? That is one of the things that we hear from constituents all the times. They want to go and see their money being made and I am curious if that is part of that plan? Mr. Olijar. We haven't gotten that far. There is a great interest in our citizens to see the printing of the Nation's currency and I would hope to entertain them there as well. Chairman Barr. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chairman now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green. Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Ranking Member and the witnesses for appearing. I am curious about digital currency and I am curious about it not in the sense of Bitcoin but in the sense of dollars as we know them and coins as we know them. It seems to me that there is a future wherein hard currency and coins won't find as much prevalence as we see today. Russia is currently looking at a bit currency of a sort, they are calling it the CryptoRuble, I believe. China is doing a similar thing. There seems to be some advantages in digital currency. You have better efficiency. You have immutability. You have transparency. You have portability. Where are we in terms of looking at the future of currency in the sense of whether there will be a need for the type of tangible currency that we currently have a lot of need for it seems? Mr. Olijar. People have a preference to a tangible currency. I do not believe that there is going to be a world in which we won't have something that we can hold, touch, and transact. The challenge that faces a digital currency as I mentioned is that there is a lot of electronic-related fraud going on and that the loss that accumulates related to that type of fraud is much more significant than that encountered from counterfeiting. Mr. Ryder. My opinion is there is probably a place for it but there is a larger place in society for actual currency that you hold and transact with. Crypto-type currencies are much more speculative and risky but you are talking to somebody whose parents raised a pretty conservative investor so I am going to stick with currency. Mr. Green. You do understand that I am not talking about Bitcoin. I am talking about a crypto dollar. I am talking about persons who are going to metamorphose from going to the vending machine and utilizing a credit card to make a purchase as opposed to a coin. I am talking about people who want to traverse the country and they want to take $10,000 with them but they don't want to take it in dollars for fear of many things that can happen along the way. Why would we not see a world where these people are going to at some point, not everybody will have $10,000 but everybody will have the opportunity to go to a vending machine and there are other types of machines now that have been converted such that they can use credit cards. I know that there will be fraud, in anything that we do we have fraud. It is just a fact of life, let us try to minimize it. Are you saying that there will be more fraud with the electronic currency than we have with tangible currency? Mr. Olijar. I believe that there already is more fraud with the electronic payment mechanisms than there is with currency today, so I would think that would be likely to continue in digital currency. In addition, there is a very large part of the population that likes the anonymity that comes from using currency in their transactions. There is a government fear. When you take Russia issuing a currency, do you really want to hold that as a stored value? Mr. Green. No. I don't. As a matter of fact, nor do I want to hold China but what I do want to do is look to the future and sometimes others can get to the future ahead of us. We ought not to conclude that because we have other things that we find that we don't like about Russia, that they may not be ahead of us on some other things. I can think of a few things that they have done ahead of us that we try to catch up with. But let me just leave you with this. I am just concerned about our not staking out at least a vision, at least start to look at where this may be going without us. I don't care to have people know what I have in my bank account. There probably would be an easier way to find out but I do want to make sure that we don't find ourselves at the tail end of a future that is going to envelop currency. Thank you. I yield back. Chairman Barr. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Pittenger. Mr. Pittenger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank each of you for being with us today. According to a report by the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, cash purchases amount to only 14 percent of the total value of consumer transactions with the average transaction being only $21. With this in mind I just want to ask you, is it necessary to continue to produce cash at the rates we have seen over the past decade or so? Mr. Olijar. We have seen no decrease in demand for cash. As I mentioned, it has two uses-- Mr. Pittenger. Let us say and excuse me but maybe 50, 60 years ago it was close to 100 percent and then we began utilizing more credit cards. Now it is only down to 14 percent. Mr. Olijar. At the same time the overall number of transactions has increased significantly and overall cash demand as I have mentioned, over the past 10 years, has remained relatively stable at 7 billion notes. We don't perceive that other payment mechanisms are going to drive that down at this point in time. The Apple Pay, the Bitcoin have taken share from checks. Checks have been the primary payment mechanisms that as has suffered a significant decrease in volume. Mr. Pittenger. OK. Some scholars propose eliminating higher value notes because they are heavy-use in tax evasion, corruption, and even terror financing. With this in mind the Europeans had a $500 note they call the ``bin Laden note'' because of it's ease of use by terror groups. I would say that no other transaction provides the same level of anonymity. Understanding this, will it be worth studying a gradual phase-out of our large denominations? Mr. Olijar. The largest denomination that we produce today is the $100 bill. Mr. Pittenger. I understand that. Mr. Olijar. We do have the authority to print 500-, 1,000- or 10,000-notes. I don't think that we could look at doing that. It would have a very adverse impact on Commerce, the $100 note is increasingly used in transactions. The higher denomination notes when we stopped printing them in 1969, the $100 note today is worth $17 compared to the hundred it was in 1969. As the level of prices have gone up, the demand and usage of the $100 note has increased significantly in Commerce and it serves as a stored value internationally. Mr. Pittenger. Mr. Ryder, you wish to comment on that? Mr. Ryder. The Mint, in 2016, produced a little over 16 billion coins. It reduced in 2017 to about 14 billion and we are on track to produce over 13 billion coins this year so it is hovering in that area. The Federal Reserve has been ordering that for the last 10 years. Mr. Pittenger. Does the Secret Service and Customs have the tools necessary to identify counterfeit coins and then prosecute those counter-felons? Mr. Ryder. Yes. The U.S. Mint is taking that issue very seriously. When I joined the Mint, I created a taskforce of some of the brightest men and women in our facility where we are addressing that issue on a weekly basis. The Gold bullion coming out of China that is counterfeit is a unique problem from a technology point of view as they are replacing the gold with tungsten. Tungsten has about the same weight as gold, the density and trying to detect that can be difficult but we are looking at technologies to address that issue both from a coining point of view within the metal itself or on the metal as well as packaging. Recently we have undertaken a new effort with consumer awareness on educating our consumers about what to look for. Mr. Pittenger. Thank you. Let me ask you one other question, if I could. I am told that some countries including China may have truckloads of perhaps counterfeit coins that they maybe would engage us with a mint buyback program. Are we prepared to ensure that this buyback program that we have is secure? Mr. Ryder. Yes, sir. We are working diligently with the Office of Inspector General and the Secret Service, to address those issues. I believe we are on top of it and can take care of that issue when it comes up. Mr. Pittenger. Thank you very much. My time has expired. Chairman Barr. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Foster. Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I should start out by saying that, as I guess the most senior representative from Illinois, if we are looking at a future where you are thinking about issuing digital currencies, I think I can speak for the entire delegation from Illinois, that that currency must be named for Abraham Lincoln. Just wanted to get on the record on that. Second, as I guess the only PhD physicists in Congress, if you are looking at methods for distinguishing tungsten from gold, you could look at low-frequency or medium-range gammas and x-rays which have a very, very strong dependence on atomic number and then well, probably with a pretty simple method, generate even a hand-held way of telling the difference there. Now back to digital currencies. I was wondering what you can learn, or maybe you already studied this, if you look at countries where they have made the transition to having most of the consumer payments be it cashless, payment by cellphone. That I presume is accompanied by a drop in low denomination bills and coins and perhaps a persistence of the higher denominations as they are used for other purposes. Have you looked at the adoption curves in those countries that have made this rapid transition and factored that into your planning? Mr. Olijar. We have. We are in constant contact with other countries and the mechanisms that they are using to drive efficiencies in the economy. They have not seen a significant increase in demand for the higher denomination notes as a result of that. The countries that have done the dollarization are very small, homogeneous countries, mostly Scandinavian countries going toward cashless but as I mentioned they are actually moving backward now and trying to make sure that they are serving the population. Mr. Foster. The total demand, particularly low denominations, is not affected when the consumer economy goes cashless, is that what they observe? Mr. Olijar. The demand for--it is the demand for all notes. Mr. Foster. I was talking about the shift. You may actually see a shift, my guess is that the low denominations would become just stored on your cellphone and it is the higher denominations where you want something you can hold in your hand and stuff under the mattress or whatever, do you see anything, have you looked at the difference in the distribution of value that consumers are asking for? Mr. Olijar. It is fairly much across the board when you are going cashless. Mr. Foster. That is interesting. OK. Is there a general report? If you could, as a response for the record, if there is some review article of what the response is in different countries I would be very interested? Don't do a big internal study on this but if you can pretty quickly come up with some report of what the experiences in countries that are ahead of the curve of the U.S. on cashless economies, it would do everyone some good to see what is coming and look around the corner here a little bit. Mr. Olijar. Absolutely. We can get you that. Mr. Foster. Thank you. I appreciate it. I will yield back. Chairman Barr. The gentleman yield's back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Emmer. Mr. Emmer. I thank the Chair and the gentlemen for being here today. The United States dollar is particularly strong right now and two-thirds of U.S. $100 notes are thought to be circulating overseas. What is the state of counterfeiting of Federal Reserve notes these days? Mr. Olijar. The level of counterfeiting remains relatively stable. It is less than one one-hundredth of 1 percent. In 2011, we unveiled a redesigned $100 note with a Blue 3-D Security Ribbon. It has been extremely successful in the marketplace. To date, it has not been successfully replicated by the counterfeiters. They are continuing to counterfeit older designs. Mr. Emmer. I am sorry, they are, I missed it? Mr. Olijar. The counterfeiting is focused on older design notes and we are gradually taking those out of circulation as quickly as we can. Mr. Emmer. In general, has the counterfeiting been stable since 2011 or just stable on $100 notes? Mr. Olijar. Overall counterfeiting has been stable. $100 notes have gone down. Counterfeiters have shifted towards the 50, which is why it is now the second note to be redesigned. Mr. Emmer. Is counterfeit currency produced in specific places or passed more in certain locations? Mr. Olijar. In the United States, 85 percent of the counterfeits are done with a PC or an inkjet printer and a scanner so there are literally thousands of them and unfortunately across the country where people are generating very small volumes of counterfeit. Outside the country there are some locations that are hot- beds of counterfeiting. Mr. Emmer. For instance? Mr. Olijar. For instance, Peru. The Secret Service has opened an office there and they are working very closely with the Peruvian government to combat that. Mr. Emmer. Are there others or is Peru the outright winner? Mr. Olijar. There are some others that I could share with you. I would prefer not to do it publicly. Mr. Emmer. OK. Is the Secret Service still emphasizing the anti- counterfeiting mission the way it once did? Mr. Olijar. As I mentioned, yes. We are working very collaboratively with the Secret Service and the Federal Reserve to keep the Nation's currency secure. Mr. Emmer. All right. Mr. Ryder, following a similar line of questioning, in an August 14 interview you are quoted as saying that you have, ``set up an internal steering committee at the Mint,'' which is what you referred to a little bit earlier, that is addressing counterfeiting issues. Can you give us some more information about the specific mission of this steering committee, who sits on the committee, who runs it and what do you expect the committee to accomplish within the next year? Earlier you were referencing gold bullion and other things but just counterfeiting in general? Mr. Ryder. Yes, sir. As I said we take counterfeiting pretty seriously. I spent 25 years in that industry both in the currency as well as the coinage side of the business. Our team at the Mint is mostly operational-type individuals who have knowledge of the makeup of our products. We meet twice a week or twice a month usually in Philadelphia but we have a pretty good handle on the problem. We are addressing those problems properly with the Secret Service, the Office of Inspector General, on the bullion side as well as the circulating side. Mr. Emmer. Who sits on it? Mr. Ryder. I am sorry? Mr. Emmer. Who sits, so how many people do you have on this committee? Mr. Ryder. About 12 members on our steering committee, mostly members of the Mint. We are getting ready to have a Vendor Day at the Mint where any vendor who has an anti-counterfeiting technology can come to the Mint, present to us and it is our hope to select the best of the best that particularly pertain to both our packaging and our certificates of authenticity, as well as entertaining some pretty smart people with regard to the physics of what we might be able to do within the metal itself. Mr. Emmer. Do you run this committee personally or you have somebody else running it? Mr. Ryder. I run it. Mr. Emmer. In the last few seconds I have left for both of you, are there additional authorities that Congress should provide to aid your efforts to combat counterfeiting? Mr. Ryder. You are doing a great job as it-- Mr. Emmer. We don't hear that every day. Mr. Ryder. No. But as I have had several letters in this regard, it keeps us on our toes. If you find a problem out there in your districts, any of you, it is good that you let us know either verbally or in writing and we will address it. Mr. Olijar. Currency is a counterfeiting game and we greatly appreciate your support in the anti-counterfeiting mission we have. Mr. Emmer. Thank you both. I see my time has expired. Chairman Barr. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. Mooney. Mr. Mooney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good follow up to my colleague's comments about counterfeiting. Your predecessors have not incorporated anti-counterfeiting technologies into U.S. coins, minted of precious metals. My efforts to press your agency on this inaction has been met with responses suggesting, you have not had that many complaints or see a large problem. But in my meetings with law enforcement, I know the Secret Service and U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement have been dealing with many cases and would certainly like more assistance from the U.S. Mint. Other than providing ongoing cooperation with investigations, one thing the Mint can do is adopt the types of anti-counterfeiting technologies that other sovereign mints have adopted long ago. I have had a demonstration of one of these in my office. This technology is called a ``PAMP VeriScan'' and it seems to work great, so when will the U.S. begin to address these problems and implement these types of security standards? Mr. Ryder. I believe we are adjusting to them now, I am very active in this area. Finding a solution for the bullion problem is an interesting problem. I have talked recently to a very bright physicist who has some very interesting ideas about how to resolve that at a relatively inexpensive cost but from a technology point of view, it is very robust. Our team at the Mint is addressing many of the issues that you are speaking about and we will continue to do so. Mr. Mooney. OK. I look forward to working with you. I appreciate your comments earlier that if we hear problems we pass it on to you and so that is what I am doing. It is important we do that. It is in the Constitution that we have the right to do that, the duty to do that. Mr. Ryder. Yes. Mr. Mooney. Unlike a lot of things government does, that is actually in the Constitution and I would just comment as an aside to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who are complaining about the value of the penny, it is the inflationary practices of the Fed that we should stand up to because those inflation costs have devalued the penny greatly over the years. The Fed's goal is 2 percent. It is been higher than that many years so, yes, the penny is worth a lot less and my constituents, many of whom save and are the ones that you mentioned, Director Olijar, about folks that are not highly banked and I are just saving their pennies and their dollars, they are the ones who were hurt by those inflationary prices so maybe we should keep that in mind as we complain about the value of the penny, to my colleagues on their side of the aisle. Another question however is, the IRS currently classifies these precious metals and coins as collectibles like Beanie Babies and baseball cards and then requires taxpayers to report capital gains, which are taxed at a discriminatory high collectibles rate of 28 percent. My view, which is backed up by language in the U.S. Constitution, is that gold and silver coins are money and indeed these American Eagle coins are legal tender. If they are indeed U.S. money, it seems there should be no taxes on them at all so why are we taxing these coins as collectibles? Mr. Ryder. That is a very good question. It would help our investor community, collector community if it weren't taxed. Obviously, it is not my decision, but it is something that we deal with, but again there is not much I can do about it. Mr. Mooney. OK. I see my colleague Frank Lucas is here so we have been working on this issue and appreciate seeing you and I am glad you are here to ask some questions. I will ask you one more before I finish here. I understand from my meetings with law enforcement that one hurdle in getting counterfeit prosecutions pursued is the statutory threshold of the $10,000 in value. Gold Eagles have a face value of $50; however, as a direct result of the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies over many decades, the market value of the gold contained in a single one-ounce Gold Eagle is now worth about $1,200 so $10,000 in face value of these coins is worth about $240,000 at current gold prices. Shouldn't the statutory threshold be modified so that prosecutors can look at actual values involved in these frauds and therefore pursue more cases and leads? Mr. Ryder. It is something probably they should take a look at. Mr. Mooney. OK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman I will go ahead and yield back the balance of my time. Chairman Barr. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Hill. Mr. Hill. I thank the Chairman. Thank you for conducting this hearing. It is good to have our leaders from the Mint, the Bureau of Engraving with us today. First of all, I know you have addressed this but I was not in the room, I would like to talk a little bit about the proposed facility you are considering in the Bureau of Engraving here in the Beltway. Is there no way to expand the facility in Fort Worth to increase capacity and thereby not build another facility here? That is question one. Question two is, are you using the same approach which is donated land and treating it in the same manner you did when you built the facility in Fort Worth back in 1986? Then, third I would say, what cost-benefit analysis it requires? I understand the part about expensive property here in Washington, D.C., higher and better use, old facility but I am real interested in this issue of could you just do it by expanding in Fort Worth or are you required from a safety point of view to have two production facilities? Thank you very much. Mr. Olijar. That is the primary driver for two facilities, it is in the Nation's and the world's interest that we have two manufacturing facilities. Putting all of our eggs in one basket presents a significantly high risk. That is one of the reasons that the Fort Worth facility was constructed so that we had two manufacturing facilities. When the facility in Washington, D.C. faced a threat from the airliner that went down on the 14th Street Bridge, we had to look at that as a very significant economic threat to the country. I want to make sure that we can meet the Nation's and the world's demand for our currency. Mr. Hill. Who supervises construction on a Treasury project like that? Mr. Olijar. We don't have the expertise internally to do that type of a construction. We would work with either GSA or the Army Corps of Engineers to supervise the production. It is well beyond our capabilities. Mr. Hill. Thank you. For the facility location here, are you going to use the same approach you did in Texas on considering an economic advantage to Maryland or Virginia and ask for donated land and State support for that construction? Mr. Olijar. We are considering going out and asking to see what type of land and facility would be provided to us. Mr. Hill. Thank you. I appreciate that. I noted in the preparation for the hearing, there was some interest that the Bureau might propose conducting your high- quality engraving, printing for non-Federal customers. Can you tell me about that? Mr. Olijar. Yes, yes. A coalition of the States has approached us to get secure documents, I think birth certificates done. There is no capacity and capability to do that in the United States today. The States have reached out to Canada to get their secure documents printed. We have the capability. We could do it without having any impact on our core mission and would incorporate the necessary security features that they are looking for. Mr. Hill. I presume that is because as the bond and stock market has gone electronic, we have no private engraver, printers left in the United States? Mr. Olijar. That is correct. No large scale. Mr. Hill. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman I appreciate the time and I yield back the balance. Chairman Barr. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Davidson. Mr. Davidson. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you both for your time here today and the work you do on behalf of our country. I am curious if we look at the problem Director Ryder, with the counterfeit bullion coins coming into the country, do Secret Service and Customs have adequate tools to detect the counterfeits? Do they have adequate legal authorities? Are there changes that need to be made and if so what might we do to address that? Mr. Ryder. I don't think that Customs, based on the problem that we have, has the right tools because I don't think the tools exist to easily authenticate the difference between an authentic bullion coin or one that has been incorporated with tungsten particularly. If it is simply a counterfeit coin that is made of gold, they have the capabilities of addressing that issue but the tungsten issue is an interesting problem and it is difficult to manufacture an inexpensive detector, when I say inexpensive, something less than say $5,000 that can do the job. We currently have quite a number of those types of devices in our facilities and they do not detect the tungsten without destructive testing. Mr. Davidson. Have you put out an RFI? DARPA, for example, funds defense projects when, gee, I wish there was a technology solution to this and they solicit proposals. Have you solicited proposals from the commercial sector for innovators whether they are PhD candidates or existing companies to try to solve this problem? Mr. Ryder. We have. I have sat down with a number of companies to talk to them. As I said earlier, we are going to have a Vendor Day to allow anybody who might have something, come and talk to us. I have talked to NASA particularly with some of their scientists about some of the things they might be doing but it is something that is ongoing, is something that we have to address. Mr. Davidson. Thank you. And, one of the other challenges of course, when you have cash or coins, is they do store value, they are the legal tender of the United States of America but sometimes people lose them. When you lose them they are gone or cash and coins, are they used for illicit finance? Mr. Ryder. In a number of cases, yes, they are. Mr. Davidson. Do people launder money-- Mr. Ryder. Absolutely. Mr. Davidson. With cash? OK. Many of these same objections are raised about cryptocurrencies or crypto assets of various types and as we speak about those, how much cash could you store inside this phone case? Mr. Ryder. Quite a bit. Mr. Davidson. If it were digitized, you could store quite a lot but in a similar package, you really would not be able to carry much value. If you had gold coins or melted this and turned it into a piece of gold but that is not what we print in the Mint, we print currency and coins, paper currency. There is a demand in the future for crypto out there and the question is, will there be intermediaries like currently, Visa and MasterCard, or cryptocurrencies, whether it is Bitcoin or one of the numerous other coins that are out there, seeking to become currencies? Recent reports have cited that demand for investor-grade bullion coins has decreased and perhaps some of that decrease is accounted for due to demand for Bitcoin or Ether or XRP because they are an emerging asset class and present opportunities for investor to store values. Do you see a correlation between the rise in demand for these cryptocurrencies and decline for bullion? Mr. Ryder. There are two different customer bases, two different people who have two different agendas. The bullion products have been selling quite a bit in reduced numbers in the last couple of years mostly because investors have taken on different types of investments. We have seen a rise in the last 2 or 3 months where we have seen a slight increase from an investment point of view. But as I said, I believe the crypto-type investments are built for specific investors who have specific investment goals. Mr. Davidson. OK. My time has expired. I look forward to following up with you on additional items. I yield Chairman. Chairman Barr. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Ms. Tenney. Ms. Tenney. Thank you, Chairman Barr. I really appreciate the panel for being here today. Obviously the jurisdiction of this committee is to give oversight over the institutions that produce our currency and aid in facilitating our everyday commerce. I have a question, just jump right to it, is, according to the bipartisan study from the Dollar Coin Alliance in Canada, approximately 10 percent of our population saved $450 million over the first 5 years of moving to a coin-base as opposed to the dollar bill. Can you tell me what your opinion is on that happening, Mr. Olijar, first and then Mr. Ryder either way? I would like to hear from both you, what is your opinion on that, particularly referring to the Currency Optimization, Innovation, and National Savings Act. Let me just clarify, a study on the penny and then moving to the coin similar to Europe and Canada, if you could tell me what is your opinion, it says there is going to be a cost savings, is that true? Can you give me a little quick pro and con just for a few seconds there? Mr. Olijar. The American public obviously loves the dollar bill and prefers to use that in commerce. Treasury's policy is that the note and the bill co-circulate and given a choice, people significantly prefer the paper note. The analysis that GAO did of the conversion shows that after 10 years it would be a net cost to the U.S. Government of over $500 million of making that conversion. Ms. Tenney. How about giving, Mr. Ryder, do have an opinion? Mr. Ryder. Yes. As the chairman mentioned in his opening statement, one of the issues that has constantly plagued the dollar coin is reluctance to remove the dollar bill. Ms. Tenney. Yes. Mr. Ryder. The two just haven't co-circulated. Currently there are 1.1 billion-dollar coins in the Federal Reserve storage vault and in our storage vaults, and that equates to about a 14-year supply, if we use 80 million coins a year. The program as designed hasn't worked. Ms. Tenney. Yes. It is interesting because the GAO says that savings would be about $4.5 billion over 30 years. That is pretty significant when you realize the paper version lasts about 5.8 years and the coin lasts longer. I know when I was in Europe and you get the coin, as an American citizen we are so used to having the dollar bill but actually you find the coin is pretty convenient. Maybe your point is right, maybe if the Americans didn't have the choice maybe they would actually decide they liked the dollar coin better. That is up for debate at this point. But I am thinking as you are advocating for, and I am looking at the GAO on renovating the new site, that you are proposing, would be $2 billion but then a new site, which would be higher technology, as you advocate, would be $1.4 billion so there would be a savings. If we did move to the dollar coin, wouldn't that actually take care of some of the savings on building the building that you want to build? Technically we could save money that way if we are looking at a fiscally conservative message. Mr. Olijar. I don't think it would have a significant impact overall, if you eliminated the dollar bill, the demand for the $2 note would most certainly go up and as it exists today the $1 note is only about 14 percent of our volume. Ms. Tenney. OK. I know you have answered this before but I missed it, could you just tell me again what your opinion is on eliminating the penny, is that something you would advocate for or not Mr. Olijar first? Mr. Olijar. I am agnostic. Ms. Tenney. OK. Mr. Olijar. I am a coin collector so-- Ms. Tenney. Oh, there you go. How do you feel about challenge coins, they are out there-- Mr. Olijar. Love them. Ms. Tenney. We could be making those. Mr. Ryder, what do you think? Mr. Ryder. No. It is not the intention of the Treasury Department to eliminate the penny, our intention is to try to create programs to increase circulation of pennies that are currently out there. Ms. Tenney. Yes. Mr. Ryder. If we can do that effectively with the Federal Reserve's assistance, I believe we can reduce the penny production by approximately 2 to 3 billion per year. Ms. Tenney. The savings? Mr. Ryder. 2 to 3 billion demand for-- Ms. Tenney. Demand? OK. How much in savings would that be to the taxpayer? Mr. Ryder. Probably in the neighborhood of $20 million, $25 million. Ms. Tenney. Twenty-five million annually? Mr. Ryder. Potentially. Ms. Tenney. OK. That is better than nothing. Mr. Ryder. Yes ma'am. Ms. Tenney. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. Thank you. I yield back. Chairman Barr. The gentlelady yields back. The Chairman recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lucas. Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being late. This is also Farm Bill Conference morning, so kicking off with the esteemed other body to start the process to address that. To both directors, I apologize for being late and have arrived way into the discussion so just for the sake of conversation, you mentioned that 14 percent of the paper currency printing is the $1 bill. Of the volume of Mint production what percentage in dollar value or tonnage, however you want to describe it, Mr. Ryder, what percentage is the one-cent piece? Mr. Ryder. Currently the one-cent is about 8.4 billion compared to the five-cent which is 1.3; the dime is 2.4 billion; the quarter-dollar is at 1.9, for a total of about 14 billion coins produced. Mr. Lucas. More than slightly half of the production of the Mint at current levels would be one-cent pieces? Mr. Ryder. Correct. Mr. Lucas. OK. Fair enough. As my colleagues discuss these issues of course, I think back to the historic beginning of both your institutions. Mint, 1790's, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1860's so to speak, and the goal of both institutions reflected the time. And for the benefit of some of my colleagues here, the original Mint Act of 1792, the goal was to make sure that the coins produced at the Mint, the material in that coin reflected the value of the coin at the time. A one-cent piece was a big old chunk of copper. From 1793 to 1857 we made half cents, we did all sorts of stuff like that and with time and commerce and the focus, things change. We went from big old giant one-cent piece to the present coin that we all think of, of course. Just as on the paper side, we went from those rather large banknotes prior to 1929, to the size we use now. Nothing has ever set in stone and the goal is to reflect the needs of commerce and of the industry. It would seem to me that, even though as some of my cohorts discussed, Bitcoin and the other electronic types of currency or even the more traditional use of debit and credit cards and that sort of stuff, obviously from the production levels that both of your institutions are engaged in, there is still a need for the physical commodity, the consumer still wants the physical commodity so it is important that we maintain that. I would suggest that at some point, I believe we need to assess in both currency and in coins what we have. We don't make half-cent pieces anymore. We don't make half-dimes anymore. We went off the Gold Standard. We don't stamp out gold coins anymore. We released into general circulation the last standard silver dollars in 1960, to 1963, somewhere along that period of time so, at some point, we need to have a piece of legislation, I believe, that addresses the denominations, the makeup, and the size, a comprehensive review and our neighbors around the world have done that. But that is a different day. A number of my colleagues have stressed the importance of the bullion coin programs and counterfeiting and that is an issue not just with the bullion coin programs but as the value of the historic coin issues for say the Mint have gone up, the tendency and the focus on counterfeiting those two are there also. Can you explain, each of you from your own perspective, what you believe is the greatest challenge you face, is it production volumes, is it your old facilities, is it maintaining the integrity of the products you produce, that is an open-ended question? Mr. Olijar. For me at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the greatest challenge that we face is keeping the Nation's currency secure. As I have said, there are counterfeiting threats that we face around the world today and our paper currency is really a confidence-game and we need to maintain people's confidence in our currency in order to continue its usage as a store value and in commerce. Mr. Lucas. This is not an appropriate question for you but my understanding is more a Federal Reserve question, don't we have more $100 bills outside of the United States physically than we have inside the United States? Mr. Olijar. Yes. It is estimated two-thirds of them circulate outside this country, yes. Mr. Lucas. That says something about the store value that our paper currency represents and am I fair to say too that we are one of the few countries, if maybe not the only country, in the world where if I go to a bank with a product that you printed and the Treasury issued in 1863, it cashes just the same as if I pull out a brand-new $1 bill that came from D.C. or from Fort Worth, unlike most of the world that recalls currency and cancels currency? Mr. Olijar. That is correct. We have never devalued and or dis-denominated our currency. I would say good today, good tomorrow, good forever, that is what the United States say. Mr. Lucas. Everybody on the planet wants it under their pillow, if they want a nest egg. From the Mint perspective, again the products that you have issued, your institutions issued since 1793, 1792, all still legal tender, all still spendable, tell me about the challenges you face? Mr. Ryder. I agree with Len, counterfeiting is an issue that we have to address. That is something we take very seriously. On the numismatic side of our business, our customer base has dwindled. When I was Mint Director in 1992, we had a customer base of around 2.7 million, today it is around 500,000. Working with Congress to create some new innovative projects from both the bullion and the numismatic side would be of great interest to me. Mr. Lucas. Would the Chairman indulge me for 1 more minute? One of the comments that I get direct from the general public, on the occasions that these topics come in, they point out how from basically the mid-1960's until the early 1980's there were very few products available to the consumer out there from the Mint, other than just the standard-issue products, the proof sets, the Mint sets, and the things that went through commerce. Since the 1980's the number of products, the number of metals, the number of different pieces, I occasionally get comments about how deep one's pocket would have to be if you wanted a complete set. Do you think that is a fair observation from the public? Mr. Ryder. Yes. I believe that over the years, there have been quite a number of products legislated that we have had to manufacture, that haven't been that successful. Mr. Lucas. It is a fair observation, you only make what we authorized or insist you make? Mr. Ryder. Correct. Mr. Lucas. That issue is shared by this side of the table? Mr. Ryder. With the exception of some of our bullion products that sell quite nicely, a new 9999 bullion product, the Buffalo program, a Palladium program that was authorized by Congress. The Secretary of Treasury has certain authorities to be able to do certain things. The majority of the products are legislated but I would really look forward to working with the Congress when we are drafting that type of legislation to work together to create legislation that makes a bit more sense from the consumers' point of view creating more of a rarity, creating different programs. I would love to see the next Quarter programs to be more of a sports-related type of product to follow the America the Beautiful program which generated almost 72 million. Changing that in 2021 with the help of Congress would be a very interesting challenge but very rewarding for our customer base. Mr. Lucas. Mr. Chairman, there is not enough time left in this session of Congress to address these issues, but this is perhaps something we need to, as an institution, look at in the coming year or 2, the overall process completely. Chairman Barr. I thank the gentleman for his suggestion. Mr. Lucas. I yield back. Chairman Barr. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. I appreciate the gentleman's suggestion and I will be happy to work with him to pursue that. If the witnesses would indulge me for one final round of questions, I just wanted to follow up on a few points and since we were on the subject of the declining numismatic customer base, I did want to ask why that is the case to Mr. Ryder. Why do you think that is the case especially given the success of the America the Beautiful Quarters program and do you count the Commemorative Coin programs or the America the Beautiful Quarters program as part of that new numismatic customer issue? Mr. Ryder. It is the primary reason in my opinion. In the last 10 years, the Mint was not given authority to spend any money on marketing our products globally. I am trying to change that around to get more allocation of funds from the Treasury Department to spend on important advertising of these programs which is another one of my priorities. Chairman Barr. You may have already answered this question, but from the start to the projected finish of the America the Beautiful Quarters program, what is the total seigniorage that will be produced as a result of that program as a result of coin collectors pulling those quarters out of circulation for keep-sake? Mr. Ryder. That is a good question and I don't know the specific answer. The total revenue that we generated on that program after cost and whatnot was about $72 million. A new program that is coming up now, the American Innovators program which is a Dollar-Coin program, we are hoping to generate total revenue in this neighborhood of $350 million. But that is going to be a brand-new program but I would stress that the America the Beautiful Quarters program expires in 2021, and I would really like to work with the Congress to create a new program going forward after 2021 that would inspire young collectors and whatnot with the right theme to get back into the coin collecting community and raise our revenues that much more. Chairman Barr. Some numismatists in my district came to me with an idea that ultimately manifested itself in legislation I introduced a couple of Congress' ago, we called it the ``American Liberty Coinage and Deficit Reduction Act,'' and that bill proposed to direct the Mint to, on every other year, instead of having the head-side of the coin reflect Statesmen from the past, not pulling those off of the coins, but keeping them in every other year, but in every other year going forward putting a symbol of liberty on the coin. The idea was that this could create additional collectors. It could attract more seigniorage. Is that an idea that would appeal to you or that you would consider going forward? Mr. Ryder. Absolutely. We are going to introduce another Liberty product in 2020 or 2019 I believe it is, but I like the theme that you have on that piece of legislation, Liberty. In my opinion, Liberty comes in a lot of different forms, that encompasses the United States of America and it could be anything from the Statue of Liberty to a starburst of fireworks, there are a lot of things that, from a design point of view, we could put in that program that would generate interest going forward for the collector community. Chairman Barr. Yes. The legislation specifically referenced celebrations of American Liberty; the Union; American values; attributes of freedom; independence; civil governance; enlightenment; peace; strength; equality; democracy; justice; those concepts could be used to generate additional interest and maybe help increase the numismatic customer base to address that issue that you mentioned. Mr. Ryder. Absolutely. Chairman Barr. I would love to work with you Mr. Ryder on that issue. Our time has expired today but, would the gentleman like to ask another question, in my remaining time? Mr. Lucas. No Mr. Chairman. Just to offer and an observation there. Chairman Barr. Sure. Mr. Lucas. One of the important things about our coinage, which sometimes we forget in the day-to-day commerce, this is something that as societies, as countries that we took up on this planet 2,500 years ago, and in many ways there are images of leaders, images of concepts from the ancient times, that only exist because they were incorporated as a coinage theme, so we should always be artistically mindful about the legacy that we leave when we produce things. We are not just stamping out pieces of metal, we are leaving a statement for all time, about who we were and what we are, so the artistic element always must be factored into our coinage and engraving programs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Barr. Well said. I couldn't agree with you more. I appreciate your passion and interest in the issue. It is very important. We appreciate the service of Mr. Olijar and Mr. Ryder and for the work of the thousands of public servants who work for your Bureaus, we appreciate every single one of them for their work and for their service to our country. The Chair notes that some Members may have additional questions for this panel, which they may wish to submit in writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in the record. Once again, I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony today. This hearing is now adjourned. [Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] A P P E N D I X September 5, 2018 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]