[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 58 (Monday, May 11, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4607-S4609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE Y2K PROBLEM

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise because this is an anniversary 
date, not an anniversary of something that happened in the past but an 
anniversary of something that is going to happen in the future. This is 
an anniversary that is counting backwards. Depending on how you count 
it, this is either day No. 599 or day No. 600; 599 to the 31st of 
December, 1999, or 600 days prior to January 1, 2000--the day of the 
great New Year's Eve party that everybody is reserving their time for 
in Times Square, in the various hotels in New York. But it is also a 
day that we need to look forward to with some concern because of what 
has come to be known as the millennium bug, the year 2000 problem, or, 
as the computer people abbreviate it, Y2K.
  I used the phrase ``Y2K,'' and my wife said, ``What are you talking 
about? What does it stand for?'' Well, the ``Y'' stands for ``year;'' 
``2'' and ``K,'' for ``kilo'' or 1,000 years--2,000--so it shortens it. 
Call it Y2K. She stopped and thought about it a minute, and she said, 
``Y2K or year 2000, you only save one syllable. What's the point?'' 
Nevertheless, that is what it has come to be known as.
  As the chairman of the newly created committee dealing with this 
challenge here in the Senate, I want to take this anniversary date to 
bring the Senate and any who are listening over C-SPAN out in the 
country as a whole up to date on where we are with the Y2K problem.
  First, let me outline the dimensions of the problem. A lot of people 
say, ``Oh, yes; we understand it. It is simply that computers are 
geared to handle the date with two digits instead of four.'' So 1998 
would be in the computer as ``98'' instead of ``1998.'' And that means 
when you get to the year 2000, the ``00'' to the computer means 
``1900'' because the ``19'' is assumed in advance.
  Actually, it is more serious than that. There are three areas of 
concern about Y2K.
  The first one, of course, is the software concern that I have already 
mentioned. The software is programmed with two digits for the date 
instead of

[[Page S4608]]

four. If you do not change the software program, the computer runs into 
problems and starts to do very strange things when it hits the year 
2000. That is the first area, the area we have been focused on.
  Since I have been involved in this issue--and it has been almost a 
year since I began to focus on it--I have discovered there were two 
other areas. So in addition to software, you have a hardware problem 
symbolized in the phrase ``embedded chips.'' These little tiny chips 
that drive the computers, the miracles of the modern technological age, 
very often have a date function built into them. And, again, in order 
to save space on the chip, the date function is built in with two 
digits.
  Where are the embedded chips? They are embedded everywhere. Andy 
Grove, the CEO of Intel, the largest producer of chips in the United 
States, was here in Washington a week or so ago. He was asked, ``How 
serious is the Y2K problem?'' He said, ``It is very serious. And the 
reason is''--he is focusing on the chip side--``you don't know where 
the embedded chips are embedded.'' ``For example,'' he said, ``the 
thermostat in your home may not work after New Year's Eve, 1999.'' Now, 
it will not do you any good to call the manufacturer of the thermostat 
and ask him, because the manufacturer himself does not know. The chips 
were purchased, put into the thermostat, without concern as to whether 
or not they had a date function. And if the manufacturer got some chips 
that had date functions in them and put those chips into your 
thermostat, you are going to be very chilly on New Year's Day in the 
year 2000. And there is no way of knowing in advance whether that is 
going to happen.

  That can be a nuisance for you, it can be a life-or-death situation 
for some people, and it can be an enormous manufacturing challenge 
where we are storing and refrigerating meat and other perishables that 
are dependent on those embedded chips. It can be a life-or-death 
situation for an automobile manufacturer whose entire plant is now 
automated with robotics, all of which have embedded chips.
  So, as I said, Mr. President, it is not just the software that needs 
to be changed, as the first of these three areas of concern; it is also 
the embedded chips that need to be found and dealt with.
  As a final footnote to this, I was discussing this whole Y2K issue 
with an individual at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 
more commonly known as the Mormon Church, the largest church in the 
State which I represent, asking him how prepared the church was. 
Fortunately, it was good news. He said the church was quite prepared. 
But he said, ``We have identified, among other things, two embedded 
chips in the tabernacle organ, which if we do not replace means that 
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will not have any organ accompaniment to it 
on January 1, 2000.'' That shows how ubiquitous the problem of the 
embedded chips can be and how it can show up in places no one would 
ever think.

  I said there were three areas of concern. I talked about the software 
and the embedded chips. What is the third? This is the area of 
connections. Everything in the computer world is connected to 
everything else in one way or another. I was at the Defense Department 
talking to those officials about their Y2K problem and made the comment 
about how difficult it will be in our defense establishment if, on 
January 1, the screen goes blank, the various screens that handle the 
computerized information, in our defense establishment.
  Deputy Secretary Hamre said, ``No, Senator, if the screen goes blank, 
while that is a problem, it is not a catastrophe; because if the screen 
goes blank that tells you you have a problem in that particular piece 
of equipment. The thing we are worried about is if the screen does not 
go blank, the computer continues to operate, but another computer 
system to which it is connected starts feeding it inaccurate data.'' If 
the computer continues to function, make its calculations that ``zero 
zero'' really does mean 1900 and begins to give you bad information, 
that could contaminate your entire database. That, he says, is a bigger 
concern than if the screen goes blank. Frankly, that had not occurred 
to me. I was able to add, unhappily, a third category of concern--
software, hardware in embedded chips, and now connections.
  What are we looking at in our special committee with respect to the 
year 2000 problem? I have divided it up into seven areas and 
prioritized these areas. We will look at them in the following order to 
try to see what we can do to avert disaster in the next 599 days--all 
the days that are remaining to us. Obviously, we would like to pass a 
resolution saying that we have an extra 2 or 3 years. We do not, no 
matter what the Congress does, no matter what the President does, no 
matter what anybody else does, we have 599 days and counting down, 
inexorably from right now.
  These are the areas of concern. No. 1, utilities. If the power grid 
goes down because of connections in the computers or because of 
embedded chips in certain power plants that shut those power plants 
down because of bad software somewhere, then it is all over. It doesn't 
matter if every computer in the country is Y2K compliant if you can't 
plug it into something. So we are focusing first and foremost on 
utilities and not just power. The water treatment system in every 
municipality in this country is computer driven and has the potential 
of being upset because of embedded chips and bad software. Utilities, 
therefore, are at the top of the list of the things we are addressing 
in our committee and are doing what we can to try to expose information 
about and get people worried and working on it.
  Second is telecommunications. What happens if you pick up the phone 
on January 1, 2000, and you cannot get a dial tone? I don't think that 
is going to happen in the United States. But the evidence is fairly 
clear that it is going to happen in some countries. If you are running 
a multinational organization, be it the Defense Department or a 
corporation, and you pick up the phone and you cannot get a dial tone 
in various parts of the world, you are in serious trouble. So, behind 
utilities, we are looking next at telecommunications.

  Third, transportation. Instantly people think of the FAA and the 
inability of the air traffic control system to control airplanes, and 
that is a concern, but what about shipping on the high seas--global 
positioning systems that all have chips in them that control the 
navigation of the oil tankers and the other freighters that are moving 
commerce all over the world? Here in the United States the railroads 
are heavily dependent on computer systems to route the traffic that 
produce the shipment of the heavy materials that keep our Nation going. 
Transportation is clearly No. 3 following utilities and 
telecommunications.
  No. 4 is the area that got me interested in this problem in the first 
place, the financial services. What happens if the banks cannot clear 
checks? What happens if there can be no electronic transfers of funds? 
I am happy to report that I believe we are fairly well along the road 
toward getting this problem solved. We have had seven hearings in my 
subcommittee on the Banking Committee on this issue, but we cannot 
relax here, either. The financial services clearly come in as the No. 4 
concern.
  Then, No. 5, general government services, not only Federal but State 
and local, as well. What happens if in our large cities the county 
government cannot distribute welfare checks, the county government 
cannot handle food stamp distribution because of computerization of the 
way that situation is handled? What happens if HCFA, the Health Care 
Financing Administration, cannot handle reimbursement of Medicare or 
Medicaid funds? I have talked to hospitals and other health care 
providers that are dependent on HCFA reimbursements for their cash 
flow projections and they use the HCFA cash flow to do such things as 
purchase ordinary supplies for running the hospital. The whole health 
care system could grind to a halt if the government services in this 
area are not made Y2K compliant. The doctors who I have talked to tell 
me we have long since quit dealing with HCFA with paper. All of our 
interconnections with HCFA are electronic, and if that system goes 
down, the ripple effect will be tremendous.

  Next, general manufacturing. Fortune magazine had an article on their

[[Page S4609]]

web site pointing out how much trouble General Motors is in. I don't 
mean to single out General Motors because I think every manufacturer 
has the same kind of problem. In today's world, where computers are 
available, we operate a just-in-time inventory system where you do not 
have huge stockpiles of spare parts out on the back lot anymore. With 
the computer, you have it worked out with your supplier that your spare 
parts arrive just in time for you to put them in your final 
manufacturing product. The just-in-time manufacturing system shuts down 
altogether and the manufacturing shuts down. General Motors has done a 
survey of every one of their manufacturing plants and they have found 
embedded chips in every one of their robotic systems. If they do not 
get this problem solved, they will not be able to produce an automobile 
after January 1, 2000.
  And then, finally, No. 7, listed last because it will come last 
chronologically, but probably should be listed first in terms of its 
financial impact if we do not get the other six solved, is litigation. 
The lawsuits that will be filed will be enormous. Estimates before my 
subcommittee of the Banking Committee indicate the total litigation 
bill could run as high as $1 trillion, one-seventh the size of the 
total economy that will change hands as people sue each other over the 
problems created by Y2K. We have to make sure we solve the other six so 
that No. 7 doesn't hit us and destroy us.
  The purpose of the special committee created by the Senate, I 
believe, is to examine all seven of these areas, act as a coordinating 
point for people involved with each of the areas, and then give 
reports, both to the Senate and to the people in the country as a 
whole, as to where we are, because it is not all doom and gloom. We do 
have areas where we are making progress.
  I talked this morning with John Koskinen who heads this effort on 
behalf of President Clinton in the executive branch. He reported to me 
that contrary to some of the information we have seen in the press, the 
Social Security Administration will be all right, and will indeed be 
able to distribute Social Security checks in the year 2000. Now, if the 
banking system is all right, those checks can be received, and that is 
a demonstration of the problem of interconnectivity that we have. But 
that is a piece of good news. As we focus on the challenge of Y2K, we 
should not lose sight of the fact that there is good news and there is 
progress being made.

  I close with this observation about the importance of this entire 
issue. One of the experts with whom I have been in contact since I 
assumed this new chairmanship said to me, ``The one thing we know for 
sure about this is that nobody has ever done it before. We have no 
historical precedent to guide us, to tell us how to handle this and 
what we can expect.'' And, of course, he was accurate. Of course, that 
is a true summation of where we are.
  Yet when I made that comment to another friend of mine, he said 
something that I think summarizes exactly the challenge we are facing. 
He said, ``No, Bob, that is not true. We have a historic example. I 
said, ``What is it?'' He said, ``the Tower of Babel.'' He said, ``The 
people got together and decided they were going to build a tower to 
heaven, and God didn't like it, so he fixed it so they could not talk 
to each other and that ended it.'' He said, ``That is the paradigm of 
what we are dealing with here, Y2K.'' We are facing the possibility 
that after January 1 we cannot talk to each other because the world is 
all wired by computers, and if, indeed, that turns out to be the case, 
as was the case in Genesis, that will end it.
  I am hoping that everyone recognizes this anniversary for what it 
is--a milepost on the road toward an inexorable challenge, and that we 
use the opportunity to take the remaining 599 days to see to it that 
when we get to New Year's Eve 1999, we can look back and say that we 
were facing something as serious as the Tower of Babel, but we have, as 
a Nation, and as a world, faced up to that, and now Y2K is going to be 
a bump in the road instead of a drive off the cliff.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from Utah yield for a brief question?
  Mr. BENNETT. I am through with my presentation. Yes, I yield.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I feel very comforted knowing that the 
Senator from Utah is a cochair of the task force along with Senator 
Dodd. I compliment the majority leader, Senator Lott, and Senator 
Daschle for putting together a commission of the type they have 
established. I know, serving as ranking member of the legislative 
branch appropriations subcommittee of which Senator Bennett is 
chairman, that he has, in every circumstance, at every hearing, gone 
through in some detail this Y2K problem. He knows it well and is very 
concerned about it.
  As he properly indicates here in the Senate, this doesn't just deal 
with Federal agencies. In fact, that is only a very small fraction of 
what can be affected, unless this problem is dealt with as a nationwide 
priority. But I wanted to just say, as I have said before on the floor, 
I think Senator Bennett is one of the finest people serving in this 
body. He has devoted a lot of attention to this issue. If this is not 
handled properly all across this country in both the public and private 
sector, this could have catastrophic consequences. If handled properly, 
we probably won't even know that this situation came and went. But I 
just want to tell you that I feel comforted by his leadership. I thank 
him very much for all of the attention and time he has devoted to this. 
He and Senator Dodd will spend a substantial amount of time between now 
and the year 2000 on this very significant issue.

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I thank my friend who has been very 
indulgent in my obsession with this issue in the subcommittee of the 
legislative branch of appropriations. In the spirit of what I just said 
about reports, I can report to the Senate that he and I heard testimony 
before our last appropriations subcommittee that the Senate will indeed 
be Y2K-compliant in the year 2000. The Sergeant at Arms, the Secretary 
of the Senate, and others, have focused on the priorities and are doing 
the things necessary to get us there. They are changing the computers 
in the Senate at the rate now of about a thousand a month. I was 
startled, as I think my friend, Senator Dorgan, may have been, to learn 
that there were close to 9,000 computers in the Senate; that is 90 for 
each Senator. I didn't think we needed that many. But there are. They 
are being made Y2K-compliant at the rate of about a thousand per month 
now. That will allow us the requisite amount of time to test the 
various fixes and see to it that we have it under control.
  The one disquieting note that came out of the hearing that I share 
with my colleagues was that they said, ``We will have the mission-
critical systems Y2K compliant by January of 2000.'' I said, ``What is 
your definition of a `nonmission-critical system?' '' They said, 
``Well, the copier in your office may not work.'' There will be many 
constituents that will be delighted to know that we cannot make copies 
in January of 2000 until additional work gets done. But I thank my 
friend for his support in that area and for his very kind words. They 
are much appreciated.
  Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I also say to my colleague from Utah 
that I hope he continues with his ``obsession,'' as he described it, 
because we really need his leadership. I am grateful to him for the 
important work he is doing.

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