[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 95 (Thursday, July 16, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8413-S8415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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     REMARKS OF SENATOR BENNETT ON THE YEAR 2000 TECHNOLOGY PROBLEM

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I would like to bring to the 
Senate's attention the excellent speech on the Year 2000 (Y2K) 
technology problem given by Senator Bennett at the National Press Club 
on Wednesday, July 15, 1998. The insightful and informative speech by 
the Chairman of the Senate's Special Committee on the Year 2000 further 
advances the work of our committee in bringing this time-sensitive 
issue to the fore. The speech accurately emphasized the urgent nature 
of Y2K, and candidly surmised the dire consequences if left 
uncorrected. I commend Senator Bennett on his efforts to bring 
increased awareness of the millennium bug to the public and private 
sectors.
  I ask that Senator Bennett's address to the National Press Club be 
printed in the Record.
  The speech follows:
         National Press Club Luncheon Speaker, Senator Robert 
           Bennett (R-Utah),
                                     Washington, DC, July 15, 1998
       Senator Bennett. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be 
     here. And I have to introduce myself as ``the other  Bob 
     Bennett.'' I know that name has been prominent in the Press 
     Club in the past. You may even have heard from him. I point 
     out that I'm the tall, skinny, bald Bob Bennett. He is the 
     short, fat, hairy Bob Bennett--(laughter)--and that's how you 
     keep us separated --keep us apart.
       I first got interested in the Year 2000 problem I suppose 
     the way anybody did; I read about it briefly, thought that's 
     kind of an interesting sort of thing, more of a feature story 
     issue, but not something to get particularly worried about. 
     Oh, two years ago, 18 months ago, whenever the first stories 
     first started filtering out, I was chairman of the--I guess I 
     still am--chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on 
     Technology and Financial Services. Ever since I've been on 
     the Banking Committee, I've been saying to the chairman we 
     need to spend more time talking about technology, smart 
     cards, digital signatures, those kinds of things.
       And finally, Al D'Amato said we're going to create a 
     subcommittee on technology, make you the chairman so you'll 
     leave us alone. (Laughter.) And we started holding hearings 
     on those various things I've described, and then said to 
     Robert, ``You know, let's hold a hearing on this Year 2000 
     problem. That'd be a subject that we could talk about to keep 
     the subcommittee going.
       And so we convened a hearing on the Year 2000 problem, 
     focusing primarily on the

[[Page S8414]]

     banking system, since that's the jurisdiction of the 
     subcommittee, and heard for the first time some real details 
     about the Year 2000 problem. And when it was over, Chris 
     Dodd, who had stayed through the whole hearing--and those of 
     you in the Washington press corps know how unusual that is--
     turned to me and said, ``Mr. Chairman, we need another 
     hearing. This is pretty scary stuff.'' And I said, you know, 
     ``You're exactly right.'' We've now held eight hearings in 
     that subcommittee, and each time we've gotten a little more 
     scared.
       Finally, in the early part of this year I went to Senator 
     Lott and Senator Dodd went to Senator Daschle, and we said, 
     ``This problem is serious enough it needs more than just the 
     jurisdiction of the Banking Committee.'' And out of those 
     conversations Lott and Daschle got together, put through the 
     resolution creating the Senate committee on the Year 2000. I 
     became the chairman, Chris Dodd became the vice chair, and in 
     a(n) unprecedented, I think, certainly an unusual, move we 
     picked up two ex officio members of that committee: Ted 
     Stevens and Robert C. Byrd. So we have a direct pipeline into 
     the Appropriations Committee, and we saw how that worked. Had 
     the first meeting of the committee in which I outlined some 
     of the problems. Ted Stevens leaned over and whispered in the 
     ear of one of his staffers who was there, and the next day he 
     had set aside $2\1/4\ billion of extra money to help the 
     federal government solve its Year 2000 problem. I'm not used 
     to having that kind of horsepower on my committee--
     (laughter)--and I'm delighted to have Ted and Senator Byrd 
     there, but also delighted that Senator Dodd is the ranking 
     Democrat and the vice chairman of the committee. He's 
     probably going to join us a little later. But I wanted to 
     publicly acknowledge the work that he's done on this.
       We have tried to be the Paul Revere. But I tell people 
     we're not yet Chicken Little. The British are, indeed, 
     coming. This is a serious problem, and one that cannot be 
     minimized. But I'm not yet ready to say that the sky is 
     falling, as some people do on the web sites. And so we've 
     tried to strike the balance between Paul Revere and Chicken 
     Little. Now, in that capacity I wrote the White House and 
     said we need some direction out of the executive branch and 
     urged the president to appoint a Y2K czar. He didn't answer 
     my letter, but he appointed a Y2K czar, which is even 
     better--John Koskinen, appointed in February of this year. 
     And when he came to see me and we chatted for a while, I said 
     ``I'm very impressed with you. I think you're just what the 
     president needs, only I have one problem: you're not high 
     enough profile. Nobody's ever heard of you.'' We do need a 
     higher profile here.
       I called Erskine Bowles. Senator Dodd joined me. Erskine 
     came to my office. We sat there, the three of us, and talked 
     about how we could get the president involved. And I am 
     delighted that yesterday the president made a major address 
     on this. If you missed it, go back and get a hold of it. Much 
     as it hurts me, as a Republican, to have to say so, it was a 
     superb speech. He touched all of the right bases, sounded all 
     of the right notes. And this is a very, very welcome addition 
     to the Y2K challenge.
       Then I picked up the paper this morning and saw Robert 
     Samuelson's column on this issue. As the Paul Revere of this 
     particular challenge, it's nice to hear some additional 
     hoofbeats on the side while I'm riding from every Middlesex 
     village and town. (Soft laughter.)
       Now the problem, of course, that we face is time. We can do 
     a lot of things in the United States Congress, but we cannot 
     legislate that the year 2000 will not come. We cannot pass a 
     law saying we will only allow the year 2000 to occur once 
     these fixes have been made. So we have to do something very, 
     very dramatic. We have to do it in a number-one priority 
     state of mind, and that's why the president's statement is so 
     welcome, because he said this should be the number-one 
     priority of every CEO in the country. And of course, he is 
     joining Tony Blair and other international leaders who are 
     saying the same thing.
       Unfortunately, there are not enough of them saying this in 
     enough countries, and the problem globally is worse than it 
     is here. I'll get to that in a minute, but I wanted to make 
     that very clear. While I'm focusing on the United States, I 
     do not mean to minimize the difficulties of a national--
     pardon me, an international challenge here.
       Well, when I get out here in these speeches and hearings 
     and other presentations, the first thing that comes up is 
     that people say, ``How did we get into this mess?'' We've 
     gotten the quick answer in the introduction; they tried to 
     save space, and so they held it down to just two digits for 
     the date. But it's actually more generic than that, and I'd 
     like to spend just a minute with you on the generic side of 
     it, so that you get an understanding of exactly how serious 
     this really is.
       Go back with me a quarter century--or, living in Washington 
     terms, four Senate elections--(laughter)--and take a look at 
     the economy and where we were. We were in the Industrial Age. 
     We were perhaps at the peak of the Industrial Age, the 
     Industrial Age that was created because somewhere, somebody 
     had a very simple idea, and that idea was interchangeable 
     parts.
       Before we had the notion of producing things that were 
     interchangeable, every manufacturing operation was really 
     producing a work of art. Everything was one of a kind. And 
     then someone got the notion of interchangeable parts, and 
     factories began to turn out things that were alike. And mass 
     production was possible, mass distribution was possible, mass 
     advertising came along. The Industrial Age came, and it 
     revolutionized everything; created enormous wealth, enormous 
     social problems but enormous opportunities.
       And we were just beginning to get comfortable with all of 
     that when somebody had another simple little idea, as 
     revolutionary as the idea of interchangeable parts. It was 
     the idea that said the switch in a transistor is either on or 
     off. And, therefore, you can write code that can be read 
     mechanically by a series of transistors strung together that 
     show that they are either on or off. And that was the 
     beginning of the what we now call digital code. And we began 
     to get serious about it roughly 25 years ago.
       And just as the concept of interchangeable parts 
     transformed the world in the Industrial Revolution, the 
     concept of digital code transformed the world in the 
     Information Revolution. And we are living through that 
     revolution in ways that future historians will look back on 
     and comment about. But it has happened to us gradually enough 
     that we don't really understand the incredible impact of that 
     little notion that a switch can be either on or off, that a 
     punch in an IBM card can either be in or out, or that a pit 
     on a laser disk can be burned to either be there or not, only 
     a micron wide so that on a disk this size, you can put the 
     entire Encyclopedia Britannica and read it by virtue of 
     digital code.
       Enormously significant things have happened as a result of 
     that revolution. We have now eliminated whole portions of the 
     hierarchy of corporate organizations. Middle management is 
     pretty well gone. Where did it go? It was replaced by 
     computer technology, because the purpose of middle management 
     was to manage information. Now, an individual on the factory 
     floor can call up on a screen more information than he could 
     have gotten from acres and acres of Harvard MBAs in the 
     middle management prior to the invention of the computer and 
     digital code.
       And it has become ubiquitous this digital code. It is 
     everywhere we look. One of the things that has happened--and 
     I am going to focus on this for just a minute out of my 
     business background, to help you understand how difficult the 
     Y2K challenge is--is that we have changed manufacturing 
     fundamentally, and not just by robotics and all of the things 
     you think of in terms of computers.
       Go back 25 years ago to General Motors, and they would have 
     warehouses filled with steel and aluminum and glass and 
     rubber and chrome and all the other things necessary to 
     produce a car. And usually there would be about 90 days--
     (audio break). (Following audio break)--in these warehouses.
       Along came digital code. Toyota pioneered Edward Deming's 
     idea of ``just in time'' inventory. The warehouse holding the 
     spare parts or the component parts of a Toyota consisted of 
     the railroad car in which those parts arrived at the plant. 
     And the railroad car pulls up to the side of the plant, they 
     open the doors and start off-loading the parts directly onto 
     the assembly line until the car is empty, and it is then 
     pulled away and another car pulled up. You can imagine the 
     savings--money, time, effort, capital, everything else--that 
     has occurred because of ``just in time'' inventory. But you 
     must understand that ``just in time'' inventory cannot work 
     without computers. You cannot have enough middle managers 
     with Harvard MBAs figuring it out to make it work if you 
     don't have computers.
       And quite frankly--I'll make one last comment on this and 
     then move on. We Republicans will tell you that the good 
     economy we're enjoying is because we won control of the 
     Congress in 1994. The Democrats will say no, it's because 
     Bill Clinton won control of the presidency in 1992. And then 
     some of us will say no, it's because President Bush appointed 
     Alan Greenspan chairman of the Fed back in the 1980s. I think 
     that, of the three, has the most validity to it. (Laughter.)
       But we have to recognize that one of the major reasons we 
     have a good economy is because we have eliminated the old 
     warehouses and those huge inventories.
       We have made people more productive, we have smoothed out 
     the curves of the business cycle, and we have done it all 
     with computers. We are reaping the benefits, whether the 
     Republicans claim credit or the Democrats claim credit, we 
     are reaping the benefits in the economy of the introduction 
     of the Information Age, and it is wonderful. And as I say, 
     all of the incumbent politicians are taking credit for it, 
     even though none of them deserve it.
       That's the good news. The bad news is that that flaw that 
     got put into the system in terms of two digits for a date 
     instead of four, that used to be just part of a single 
     software program and then several software programs and 
     something that would get taken care of later, has become over 
     the last 25 years, absolutely pervasive, and the flaw is 
     everywhere.
       Yes, it's in computer programs, software programs; it's 
     also imbedded into those microcomputers that we call chips 
     that are imbedded into machine tools, supertankers, valves on 
     pipelines that control natural gas and, yes--get your 
     attention--probably in the presses that print your magazines 
     and newspapers. And the estimates we get on our committee are 
     that between 2 (percent) and possibly 5 percent of those 
     chips will fail.

[[Page S8415]]

      And you don't know which 2 (percent) to 5 percent they are, 
     and you don't know where they are.
       But if all of a sudden the pipeline that is bringing 
     natural gas to the generating plant that is creating the 
     electricity that's lighting these lights shuts down because 
     an imbedded chip in one of the valves fails, it isn't just a 
     valve in a pipeline that has failed, the whole power grid is 
     now at risk. And if enough of them fail in enough key places, 
     you don't have any power.
       Or, if enough of them fail in enough water purification 
     plants, you don't have any water. Or, if enough of them fail 
     in enough medical devices in an ICU in a major hospital, some 
     people will die. I'm beginning to sound a little like Chicken 
     Little, but I want you to know these are very real 
     possibilities. And the only reason I am not Chicken Little 
     yet is that we have 17 months in which to get from here to 
     there.
       Now, the number-one problem we face is denial.
       People say, ``No, it can't possibly happen.''
       If I may take a swipe at the National Press Club--I hope 
     this is permitted--the McLaughlin Group--I was on a program 
     with John McLaughlin. We talked about this. And then he 
     played a few clips of our program to the McLaughlin Group and 
     took a vote. And by three to one, they decided it was not a 
     major problem. (Laughter.)
       Awareness: Understanding of how serious the problem is, in 
     fact, our biggest challenge. And that's why the president's 
     statement is so welcome, because we can hold all the hearings 
     we want, I can give all the speeches on the floor of the 
     Senate I want, I've long since learned that if I had a secret 
     document of highest national importance that I wanted to put 
     someplace where no one ever would find it--(laughter)--I 
     would put it in the Congressional Record. (Laughter.)
       So we can't do this without a much higher level of 
     awareness to get everybody involved and get everybody going. 
     That's why, as I say, the president's speech was so welcome 
     and so well done.
       But the other thing that I get after I get the first 
     question of how did we get into this mess and how pervasive 
     it is--and I hope I've helped you understand how pervasive it 
     is--I say again, as I said at the outset, what I have 
     described in the United States applies in spades abroad. The 
     only countries that I think are moving aggressively in this 
     area so far, besides the United States, in no particular 
     order: Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore. 
     Now the Netherlands have just appointed a former CEO of 
     Phillips (sp) to head their effort, and I think they will 
     soon join that group. There may be some other countries that 
     belong there. But specifically not in that top tier are 
     Japan, Germany, France, and many of our other allies.
       This is a global problem, pervasive in robotics, pervasive 
     in embedded chips, pervasive in connections.
       To give you a quick anecdote about that, I was at the 
     Defense Department talking about this to Secretary Cohen and 
     Deputy Secretary Hamre. And I--they said, ``Yeah, we're--you 
     know, we're working very hard on this.''
       And I said, ``It'll be real embarrassing if the screen goes 
     blank on the year 2000.''
       And Secretary Hamre said, ``Well, actually, Senator, that's 
     not our biggest problem.'' He said, ``That's kind of good 
     news. If the screen goes blank, we know we've got a problem. 
     Our problem is if the screen stays up and we are receiving 
     data that is wrong and we don't know it, and the whole 
     database then becomes suspect.''
       So those are the three areas. You've got the software 
     problem that people can quickly understand, you've got the 
     embedded chip problem that they probably haven't thought 
     about, and then you have the connections problem that can 
     ultimately kill you.
       Well, back to the ``McLaughlin Group'' for just a minute. 
     This is the question I get: Are we going to win or lose? 
     Okay, is it going to be a catastrophe or are we going to get 
     by? Give me an answer so I can cut to a commercial. 
     (Laughter.)
       All right. Let me leave you with this analogy. I think the 
     president's statement yesterday was a stirring call to arms. 
     And if I may say so without overdramatizing it, it's a little 
     like announcing that we are at war. Now, this is a different 
     war in that it has a set time period. But if you had asked 
     Franklin Roosevelt on the 8th of December, 1941--Are we going 
     to win or lose''--he would have said, ``We're going to 
     win''--just the way Bill Clinton said yesterday, ``We're 
     going to win. We're going to solve this problem.'' But would 
     you in the press corps say, ``Oh, good. The president has 
     told us we are going to win, so we can now ignore this 
     story.'' And yet too many in the press are saying that: ``Oh, 
     we've got a three-to-one vote on the `McLaughlin Group' that 
     says it's not going to be a big deal, so we can ignore this 
     story.''
       I believe we're going to win; that is I think that 
     civilization as we know it is not going to come to an end. 
     It's a possibility. Possibility, if Y2K were this weekend 
     instead of 76 weekends from now, it would. But we have 76 
     weeks in which to try to get this under control. But we are, 
     in a sense, at war against this problem. And you would not 
     have said in the Second World War, ``Oh, because the 
     president assures us we're going to eventually prevail, we do 
     not need to cover Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Normandy, the Battle 
     of the Bulge, or any of the rest of it.''
       And so my plea to you here in the Press Club is: Do not 
     ignore this story just because someone is reassuring you that 
     it's going to work out all right. There are all kinds of 
     stories out there that need to be covered and, most 
     importantly, need to be exposed.
       This is the ideal story for the Washington press corps. In 
     covering it, you can affect the outcome. Isn't that what 
     you're always trying to do? (Laughter.) Here's an 
     opportunity! (Applause.)
       Well, as you know, I've told you I've been immersed in 
     this. It has become my obsession. I said that to the 
     president yesterday as I congratulated him on his speech. And 
     he said, ``Good. Somebody has to be obsessed.''
       But I think I will quit at this point and respond to 
     whatever questions you might have. Thank you very much. 
     (Applause.) 

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