Our Company spent an hour today talking with a reporter from the NY Times. He stated that there was a government report that was just issued saying that upto 40% of the electric capacity could be out of service on Y2K and he was assigned to provide background on how companies, such as ours, were responding to the increased or perceived increase demand in generators (both home and for business). He promised to provide me with information on this "Report" --- anyone seen anything on this yet? Thanks

-- Anonymous, November 24, 1998

Answers

Murray, the only government report I know about that was recently released was Congressman Horn's latest "Report Card" on the progress of government agencies. (Very gloomy) I'll be extremely interested to hear any follow up information you may get, or hopefully someone else has gotten wind of this and will clue us in! Thanks for the "heads up"!

I'll post part of the article about the Horn grades while I'm here:

"Overall, the Executive Branch of the Federal Government has earned a D. Unfortunately, the Federal Government has not made enough progress since the last report card when it also received a D. Executive Branch departments and agencies are responding too slowly in assessing and repairing their mission-critical systems, their telecommunications equipment, their embedded chip systems, and their data exchanges. This includes their interaction with other Federal agencies or the clients they serve be they States, localities, or non-governmental sources. More important, over one-half of the agencies have not completed contingency plans to ensure that service will continue should their mission critical systems fail.

"We estimate, at the current rate of progress, that nearly one-third of the Federal Governments mission critical systems will not be Year 2000 compliant by the deadline established by the President of March 30, 1999. Federal systems need to be updated by this deadline to ensure sufficient testing of multiple systems. This deadline cannot be extended.

"Several agencies "earned" grades that are especially discouraging. The Department of Health and Human Services, an agency that has been on this subcommittees "Watch List" for some time, has again received an F. Health and Human Services Health Care Financing Administration, called by many "HCFA", the entity that administers the Medicare program, is mainly responsible for the failing grade. HCFA has over 100 mission critical systems and only 7 are Year 2000 compliant. If HCFA does not accelerate its efforts dramatically, failure of Medicares systems is inevitable and thus the ability to provide payments for benefits and services will be jeopardized.

"The Department of Energys failing grade is another source of deep anxiety. Who wants an F student managing nuclear material, as well as the clean-up of hazardous waste?

"In addition, Energy has a key function in monitoring the production and distribution of electrical power to the citizens of the United States. Potential electrical blackouts could cost billions of dollars a day. Thousands of workers could be laid off. That would be a critical blow to an otherwise growing economy.

"Departments that continually fail include the Department of Justice and the Department of State. In addition, I remain deeply concerned about the Department of Defenses D minus grade. While I am encouraged by the leadership of Secretary Cohen and Deputy Secretary Hamre, the Defense Department must focus on its embedded chip problem as well as its strategic systems. It goes without saying that there is zero tolerance for error when you are dealing with the defense of our Nation."

".. the Year 2000 computer problem is not receiving the attention it deserves from the President. It is essential that the President begin to address the Year 2000 issue much more frequently. President Clinton and Vice President Gore cannot continue to act as if this problem is going to solve itself. I have advocated the use of fireside chats from the White House. I continue to encourage the President, the Vice President, and the Assistant to the President John Koskinen, chairman of the Year 2000 Council, to redouble their efforts to address this issue. Time is running out."

-- Anonymous, November 24, 1998

The figure 40% rings a bell. I believe Sen. Bennett used that figure months ago to describe the chances of widespread power outages. That's a different statement, though, from what your NY Times contact described.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 1998

My guess is that he's referring to Senator Bennett's earlier remarks on chances of significant power outages. I recall Bennett using the figure "40%" in one of his speaches. Try one of these two websites:

http://www.senate.gov/~bennett/y2k.html http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/index.html

-- Anonymous, November 25, 1998