<I guess on this board you're either a Y2K-junkie or in denial.>
The remarks of Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), who heads the Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, also have raised alarms.
[CK HOUSTON SIDEBAR: Bennett is also Chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Technology and Financial Services, and is a member of Senate Appropriations Committee.]
Though the senator insists he is playing Paul Revere, not Chicken Little, on the subject, he said in a recent speech, ''When people say to me, 'Is the world going to come to an end?' I say, 'I don't know.' ''
Though he does not expect widespread failures of electricity, water, telephone, transportation or financial systems, he does not predict a rosy transition either.
In a recent speech to the National Press Club [July 15 '98], Bennett predicted regional blackouts, water system failures in some communities and rationing of flights to deal with air traffic control failures. Some banks will declare bankruptcy, some medical devices will fail, and businesses will find it difficult to get supplies from foreign countries that are not Y2K compliant, he predicted.
He said he is worried about the prospect of riots, some ground-level weapons problems and payment for government programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and welfare.
When asked if the cyber-survivalists should be considered wacky, Mary Jane Collipriest, Bennett's communications director, said no.
chicagotribune.com
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Read the WHOLE transcript. It's fascinating.
home.swbell.net
EXCERPT - BENNETT'S SPEECH:
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 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."
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HEY KEVIN: Is Bennett a "Y2K junkie" too?? Maybe we should get he or his staff to post on this thread ... just to bug you guys and give you new targets. ROFL
Cheryl
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