Reply-To: ou2000@berkshire.net
Organization: OU 2000 INC.
An Exchange Between Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Paula Gordon, July 28th Panel on "Y2K and Emergency Preparedness", George Washington University Conference on Y2K July 26 - 30, 1999
"I'm congenial to advancing that again in more of a legislative venue. I would welcome, by the way, any participation from this panel or others who are working on this so that within the next month, we could craft some legislation to have it ready closer (to the rollover)... As they get to November, they might be even more interested.......
When it comes to the American community beyond those things which are
directly related to the Federal government, supporting the communities..... has not been done and I'd be willing to give it another try...." Congressman Dennis Kucinich
PAULA GORDON: I brought up in the last panel.... the hypothesis that
perhaps the reason the President and the Administration have
not moved forward on (Y2K) before (now is that they have made) a
conscious decision (not to do so). (They may have decided that) it is
possible that increasing the awareness of the public concerning this
issue could be very disruptive with respect to the economy for instance, and perhaps a conscious decision has been made not to risk that kind of upset. (Perhaps they have) instead (decided to) wait until after the (rollover) and then come in and respond in the recovery. The (establishment of the) ICC ~ the Information Coordination Center ....(is compatible with) that hypothesis because that's what it's focusing on. It's focusing on gathering information, assessing things..... focusing on continuity planning, (response) and recovery in the aftermath.
I(Do you think that that is the case? And,) if that is the case, do you think that there is any way to move the Administration from that
position so they could see that we would have to pay more.... if we were to wait to (act).......
It's more economically reasonable and wise, I think, to put resources
into preventing and mitigating the infrastructure disruptions and
technological disasters that we could expect in this county as well as
abroad ~ than to wait until the rollover and come in and pick up (in the aftermath).
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH: I think that the answer to your question is
"Yes" and it's "Yes" because it becomes self evident. I'm
concerned that the moment for national leadership has been passed over.
If you go forward right now and call (Y2K) to the public's attention,
the person who does that whether it's the President, the Vice President or some other leader takes ownership and then if something goes wrong, you know ~ it's still politics: "You did it ~ You're Mr. Y2K". And, you know, there is an election in the Year 2000. (And) you can bet there's been some discussion about what happens if there is a failure in voting machines.
I would say that it is unfortunate that the decision has been made to
take a rather low profile approach.
PAULA GORDON: Do you understand why that's (the case)?
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH: I would guess......it doesn't get too
complicated: there's an election in 2000 and I don't think that anyone
wants to risk having this issue to carry on their back if something goes wrong. What they do is to say enough about it so that they can go back through newsreels and say something about it: "...We got together at the National Academy of Science (which they did ~ I was there.) "We were part of a United Nations effort." (They were...I was there.) "You know we did all these things through what John Koskinen has done. We did everything we (could). We weren't on the stage all the time..."
But I think that that belies a greater challenge here which is to step
up to responsibility and claim leadership of a nation and say what we
have to do as a country and rally (the) country around it and (that's)
not being done, as you say, (it's) purposefully (not being done). And I think that the consequences can only be adverse. By the way, and I say this with only the greatest respect for the Administration and having been a supporter of the Administration in many things: I think they're missing an opportunity here and I think the consequences for the country will not be happy.
However, almost four billion dollars in resources have been devoted to
Y2K at the Federal level, most of it to make sure that all of the
systems are being reworked. More money will be dedicated, but down the
line, out of Washington, across the country, there will be system
failures, people will not understand it. There will be a lot of
confusion.
In fact, the Small Business (Administration) does have a system set up
to tell people what they can do to run a routine...analysis of their
small business.
We had a Year 2000 preparedness Act which would have helped raise the
public awareness of the implications of Y2K and solutions to Y2K
problems.
You know, we need to do more though, and that more has to come out of
the White House, plain and simple.
So we'll still see. Is there still time? Yes, even now, even at this
late moment, there's still time. (But).... just like anything else, the less time you have the greater the intensity goes and sometimes you don't get it done. I would say the Administration would do well to check with some of those who are working (in) emergency preparedness... at local community (level) and just talk about the massive effort that goes into just the community. But communities need help and we need some direction; we're not just thousands of different communities. We're an American community. That's what my concern is.
So more can be done, but you are absolutely right, there was a decision made not to do it and with all due respect to John Koskinen who's probably pulling his hair out.....
PAULA GORDON: Congressman, I have written a White Paper on
Y2K.....It proposes the establishment of a Special Action Office for Y2K along the lines of the Federal Energy Office (at the time of ) the
Federal energy crisis. It would be crisis-oriented and action-oriented ~ unlike the present effort (that) is just (focused on) information
sharing, coordination, monitoring, and assessment, and (that) does not have anything to do with taking action to get communities prepared (and minimizing impacts). One of the things (the Office) would focus on (would be) making sure that there are as few technological disasters as possible.....I've confronted Mr. Koskinen at every opportunity I've gotten for the past year .....and brought it up again in May. That is, I think that there has to be an effort by the Federal government to identify those most hazardous sites, plants, facilities, pipelines, refineries, etc., and make sure......that everything humanly possible has been done (so) that there's (will) be a minimum of Bhopal's and Chernobyl's here and abroad. "I (also) have real concerns about nuclear power plants.......
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Energy Institute are
not adequately attending to these issues: the embedded systems issues,
particularly; the safety issues; the back up diesel generation capacity issues and all of that. It's very much in question.
(Does) the idea (of a Special Action Office for Y2K)...... appeal to you or....... the other initiative of trying to focus in on....technological disasters and making sure that we don't have technological disasters on top of infrastructure disruptions?
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH: I would say we have an existing structure, if
John Koskinen was empowered to reach into that level, he could do it.
PAULA GORDON: He doesn't want to. I've talked to him personally. He
finds it totally anathema to his view of the role of the Federal
government.
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH: Yeah, I would say, he could do it, but he
won't....I'm congenial to advancing that again in more of a legislative venue. I would welcome, by the way, any participation from this panel or others who are working on this so that within the next month, we could craft some legislation to have it ready closer (to the rollover)... As they get to November, they might be even more interested.......
When it comes to the American community beyond those things which are
directly related to the Federal government, supporting the
communities..... has not been done and I'd be willing to give it another try....
('Just passin it on)
:)
-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), August 21, 1999