[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1579-S1580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     A HIGH PROBABILITY OF FAILURE

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we now have a consensus that the 
year 2000 is going to arrive before the Federal Government has prepared 
its computers for the date.
  Yesterday, in a hearing held by my esteemed colleague Representative 
Stephen Horn, officials from the General Accounting Office [GAO] warned 
that many of the Government's computers will stop working in 2000 
because agencies have failed to take the appropriate precautions. Joel 
Willemsen, GAO's Director of Information Resources Management, warned: 
``There is a high probability there will be some failures.''
  Though widely pronounced in small circles for a year now, this fact 
is now being heralded by the General Accounting Office--Congress' 
dutiful investigative arm. To its credit GAO has added the year 2000 
problem to its list of ``High Risk Government Programs;'' promised to 
report periodically on the status of the agencies' responses; asked 
agencies to focus on their most critical computer systems; and now, has 
warned that we must be prepared for some amount of failure.
  Are we ready for failure? In Medicare payments? In our air traffic 
control system? In our national defense system? We must act, and place 
responsibility in a body to ensure compliance. My bill, S. 22, would 
set up a commission to do just that. I can only hope that my colleagues 
and the leaders of the executive agencies take heed of GAO's warnings 
of probable failure.
  I ask that an article from today's Washington Post entitled ``Double 
Zero Will Arrive Before the Fix'' be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 25, 1997]

                 Double Zero Will Arrive Before the Fix


     GAO Says Reprogramming Some Computers for 2000 Is Running Late

                       (By Rajiv Chandrasekaran)

       The General Accounting Office warned for the first time 
     yesterday that some of the government's computers will stop 
     working in 2000 because agencies will not be able to finish 
     reprogramming their equipment to understand years that do not 
     begin with ``19.''
       ``There is a high probability there will be some 
     failures,'' Joel Willemssen, the GAO's director of 
     information resources management, told a House subcommittee. 
     He urged government agencies to focus their efforts on the 
     country's most critical computer systems, including those 
     that handle air traffic control, Medicare and national 
     defense.
       Many large computer systems use a two-digit, year-dating 
     system that assumes 1 and 9 are the first two digits of the 
     year. If not reprogrammed, those computers will think the 
     year 2000--or 00--actually is 1900, a glitch that could 
     cripple many systems or lead them to generate erroneous data.
       It's a particularly serious problem for the federal 
     government, experts said, because most agencies have older 
     computers that use the two-digit system. Earlier this month, 
     the GAO, the watchdog arm of Congress, added the ``Year 2000 
     problem'' to its list of high-risk issues facing the nation.
       The GAO does not have any estimates on how many computers--
     or which systems--might fail in 2000.
       Although every Cabinet department has told the Office of 
     Management and Budget that it is aware of the complicated and 
     costly process of fixing its computers, some congressional 
     leaders yesterday questioned whether the agencies were moving 
     fast enough and have allotted enough money to make the 
     changes in time. Some agencies still are studying--and have 
     not yet begun actually reprogramming--their systems, 
     according to a recent OMB report.
       ``Only a few of them have specific, realistic plans to 
     solve the problem before the stroke of midnight on the last 
     day of 1999,'' said Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.), chairman of 
     the House subcommittee on government management, information 
     and technology, who oversaw yesterday's hearing before an 
     overflow crowd. Six departmental chief information officers 
     testified before the panel, each trying to describe just how 
     complex the glitch will be to fix.
       At the State Department, for example, chief information 
     office Eliza McClenaghan said there are 141 programs totaling 
     27.7 million lines of computer code written in 17 programming 
     languages that need to be changed. Almost half of the code 
     cannot be reprogrammed and will have to be replaced, she 
     said.
       Others highlighted the fact that many government officials 
     only recently have become aware of the problem.
       ``I didn't even know there was such a thing as a year 2000 
     problem until August,'' said

[[Page S1580]]

     Michael P. Huerta, the acting chief information officer at 
     the Department of Transportation, which last year was given 
     an ``F'' by Horn for its inattention to the date issue.
       Horn and Rep. Thomas M. David III (R-Va.) said they were 
     concerned that some agencies have allotted only six or seven 
     months to test the changes to their computer systems. 
     Yesterday the GAO recommended agencies give themselves at 
     least a year for testing.
       ``They're pushing the envelope so close to D-Day,'' Horn 
     said.
       The chief information officers, however, promised the 
     subcommittee that their systems would be fixed in time. ``You 
     can be confident we'll get the job done,'' said Emmett Paige 
     Jr., an assistant secretary of defense. He complained that a 
     requirement to report the department's progress regularly to 
     the OMB, the GAO and the subcommittee ``stretches our 
     resources [to fix the glitch] a little thinner.''
       Some computer systems already are experiencing the date 
     problem, said Keith A. Rhodes, a GAO technical director. A 
     Defense Department contractor last month received a 97-year 
     delinquency notice on a three-year contract due to be 
     completed in January 2000, he said.
       Horn also questioned the OMB's latest cost estimate for 
     fixing the problem, which it has pegged at about $2.3 
     billion. After the hearing, Horn called the figure ``way too 
     low'' because it does not include devices such as elevators 
     that rely on microprocessors that might need to be 
     reprogrammed. The estimate also does not take into account 
     higher labor costs for computer programmers as December 1999 
     draws closer, he said.
       Yesterday, some department officials stood by their 
     estimates, while others took the opportunity to slightly 
     revise projections. The Department of Transportation, for 
     example, added $10 million to its estimate, raising it to 
     about $90 million. At the Defense Department, which faces the 
     largest problem of any federal agency, Paige said its current 
     $1.2 billion price tag is only temporary.
       ``I submit that as we continue the assessment [of computer 
     systems], that figure will continue to rise,'' Paige 
     said.

                          ____________________