At that time the Secretary of the Treasury was Robert E. Rubin. He had eight months to prepare a report for the Congress. The government hired two corporations, Coopers and Lybrand and Opinion Research, to help with the details. The study had information about how long it would take, how much it would cost, and how hard it would be to create the new state quarters.  They also had to think of some ideas for designs and figure out about how much money the government would make by selling the coins as collector pieces.  And last, they had to figure out if people liked the idea of having a different quarter for each state.  When the report was done the law required that the Secretary of the Treasury decide whether or not to move ahead with the new quarters program.

When the Secretary of the Treasury took a survey, he found out that 75% of the people surveyed said they would be "very likely" or "almost certain" to collect the state quarters. After completing his report, the Secretary of the Treasury decided that the program would go forward. We're glad he liked the program, and we know a lot of people are too! In November, 1997 Congress passed another law that let the work begin on the new state quarters. The name of the law was the 50 States Commemorative Coin Act. It is also known as Public Law 105-124, and President Clinton signed it on December 1, 1997.

The new law said that the governor of each state would be responsible for choosing a design for its state quarter. Some governors held contests for people to enter their ideas. Other governors started committees that worked on several ideas. All of the design ideas have to be reviewed by the U.S. Mint, the Citizens Commemorative Coin Advisory Committee, and the Commission of Fine Arts before the Secretary of the Treasury will approve them.