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February 29, 2024 The Honorable Janet Yellen Secretary of the Treasury Department of the Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20220 Dear Madam Secretary: The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) held a public meeting on February 27, 2024, during which the CCAC reviewed the 2026 Semiquincentennial circulating coins one cent and five cent portfolios. As part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the formation of the United States of America in 1776, the United States Mint, authorized by the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-330), will be issuing either slightly modified or fully redesigned circulating coins for 2026. The one cent and five cent coins will be slightly modified with either the addition of a special privy mark, a double date (1776 – 2026), or both. The CCAC was provided several options of privy marks and date ranges on the one cent and five cent coins. Out of a possible score of 24 points, the CCAC scored the simple Date Range option with no privy mark for both the one cent and five cent coins 13 points, the highest score of all options. This recommendation of the CCAC aligns with that of the Commission of Fine Arts. Sincerely, Peter van Alfen, PhD, CCAC Chair February 29, 2024 The Honorable Janet Yellen Secretary of the Treasury Department of the Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20220 Dear Madam Secretary: The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) held a public meeting on February 27, 2024, during which the CCAC reviewed reverse candidate designs for the 2025 American Innovation $1 Coin Program honoring innovations in Florida and Texas. As background information regarding this program will accompany this communication, this letter details the CCAC’s recommendations. Florida The state of Florida has proposed honoring the Space Shuttle Program. Of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) ten field centers, none is more identifiable than the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Merritt Island, Florida. And, arguably, no spacecraft is more recognizable than the Space Shuttle, or Space Transportation System (STS), the world’s first reusable spacecraft. NASA's space shuttle fleet first launched on April 12, 1981, and completed 30 years of missions, each launched from the KSC’s Launch Complex 39. Starting with Columbia and continuing with Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour, the space shuttle has carried people into orbit; launched, recovered, and repaired satellites; conducted cutting-edge research; and built the largest structure in space, the International Space Station. The final space shuttle mission, STS-135, ended when Atlantis landed at the KSC on July 21, 2011. Out of a possible 24 points, the CCAC scored reverse design FL-09 17 points, the highest score for all of the options. While recommending this candidate design, the CCAC also recommends that the stylized stars in the background be reconsidered for deletion or modification by the US Mint staff. Reverse design FL-09 features the Space Shuttle lifting off from KSC’s Launch Complex 39 framed to the lower left and right of the field by billowing smoke. This design candidate was also favored by the Commission of Fine Arts. Texas The state of Texas has proposed honoring Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center. In 1961, NASA established its Manned Spacecraft Center in Clear Lake, Texas, on a 1,000-acre site donated by Rice University. The facility was later renamed Johnson Space Center (JSC) to honor former President Lyndon B. Johnson. JSC provides NASA with the economic, logistical, and intellectual support needed for its human space flight program. The CCAC reviewed nine reverse candidate designs. Following a robust conversation which included a liaison from the Texas State Governor’s office and one from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, the CCAC scored the candidate designs with TX-03 and TX06 tied both receiving 19 points out of a possible 24. On a subsequent motion, the CCAC recommended by a vote of five in favor, two against, and one abstaining reverse candidate design TX-06, which was not the preferred design of the Governor of Texas, who preferred TX03, featuring an astronaut in space floating above the International Space Station. Candidate design TX-06 presents a view of a Space Shuttle on a large Mission Control screen in the background while in the foreground a man sits at a bank of computer terminals. The Commission for Fine Arts had no recommended candidate design from this portfolio. Sincerely, Peter van Alfen, PhD, CCAC Chair