It's indicative of the current US administration that they managed to screw this up despite many examples world wide of how to do it properly.
> The government’s phasing out of the penny has been “a bit chaotic,” said Mark Weller, executive director of Americans for Common Cents. The pro-penny group is funded primarily by Artazn, the company that provides the blanks used to make pennies.
> Americans for Common Cents is a non-profit lobbying group dedicated to the protection of the one-cent coin. The group is primarily interested in preserving the penny for economic and historical reasons. In 2012, Executive Director Mark Weller was paid $340,000 by Jarden Zinc to discuss issues relating to minting with members of Congress and the US Mint.[41] Weller has acknowledged this funding, saying that “We make no secret that one of our major sponsors is a company that makes the zinc ‘blanks’ for pennies."[42] Weller has testified on multiple occasions before Congress. In 2020 Weller testified that the use of cash protects privacy, provides economic stability and "is a public good" that should not be replaced by mobile money.[43]