'Very top highlights below -- a very important interview; my
few comments are in brackets. -- The below URL is 3 lines long
but must be joined as all one line. If you can't get to the original
source that way, go to usia.gov
and search for "DECEMBER 17, 1998 - Transcript of video conference"
--Roleigh
pdq2.usia.gov@pdqtest1.env?CQ_SESSION_KEY=VKQCIPCMMLYM&CQ_QUERY_HANDLE=124045&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=1&CQ_PDQ_DOCUMENT_VIEW=1&CQSUBMIT=View&CQRETURN=&CQPAGE=1
United States Information Agency
Title: TRANSCRIPT: ABRAMS CITES INDUSTRY-GOVERNMENT Y2K
COOPERATION (Industry to help other groups become Y2K ready)
Date: 19981223
Text:
Washington -- A U.S. official says senior people in government
are working closely with private industry to develop contingency
plans to deal with the Year 2000 (Y2K) computer problem and find
ways to respond to emergencies that may occur.
Janet Abrams, executive director of the President's Council on
Year 2000 Conversion, told a USIA digital video conference
December 17 that the council's 25 working groups -- made up of
senior federal officials -- are in the process of assessing the
Y2K readiness of key industrial sectors such as air, rail,
electric power, oil and gas, and food supply.
...
MS. ABRAMS: We're here in Washington on a gray, rainy day. And
let me explain first of all, my position. I am the Executive
Director of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. I
serve as the deputy to John Koskinen, who is the chair of the
council. And he is an assistant to the President.
President Clinton -- for your background, President Clinton
established the Council on Year 2000 Conversion in February of
this year, 1998. The council is made up of approximately 40
senior federal government officials. It's an inter-agency
government panel. And we meet monthly. Yesterday we just had our
eighth meeting -- our December meeting. The council began meeting
in April.
We are divided into some 25 working groups. And each of the
working groups focuses on a particular area of concern --
electric power, oil and gas, state and local government --
outreach to those entities, Native American governments, et
cetera -- transportation, food supply, I could go on and on.
These working groups have each formed relationships with the key
umbrella organizations in the private sector, or in state and
local government, if that is what's relevant, to be their
partners.
...
We're working to develop an over-arching capacity to manage what
could be a series -- a large series of mild to moderate
disruptions in our country.
...
We work very closely with all 50 states. We've had a summit here
in Washington with Y2K experts from the states. We had 45 of the
50 states here in July. We will be repeating that in the coming
months here in Washington.
[Why did 5 states not participate--how out of the loop is the
situation in those 5 states?]
...
Our real concern beyond the states is the readiness of cities and
counties. And we have a major push underway to raise the
awareness of those local officials.
The National Association of Counties has just completed a survey
-- one of these assessments that they've done -- in cooperation
with our working on state and local government. And they found
and published just last week that roughly 50 percent of county
governments in our country -- and we have some 4,000 counties in
the United States -- 50 percent do not have a comprehensive Y2K
readiness plan.
...
Also, we are working through our Federal Emergency Management
Agency to reach down to state emergency management officials and
local emergency management officials to get them prepared.
In addition to getting them to become Y2K compliant with their
own systems, we need to get them prepared for the unique
experience that we may all encounter in 12 months because this
will not be business as usual in the emergency response world.
We may have a situation of lots of small disruptions across the
country -- a small utility, a power plant out, a water
purification plant out in another community.
These are situations that in usual times you might be able to
call on the state or the federal government to help solve, but we
are stressing to our local officials that they're going to have
to take care of these problems on our own.
...
And let me add to our priority for 1999 the prevention of public
over-reaction -- public over-reaction to the Y2K problem.
...
We do not envision major massive disruptions, but we want to be
honest with the public. Mr. Koskinen's philosophy is the public
should know all that he knows. And that's why we are publishing
these quarterly reports that -- our first, One Year Out report,
as I mentioned, will be issued to the pubic in a week or two by
year end.
And we will continue to report quarterly through a document and
then regularly, week to week, through meetings with journalists
and events that we create to show the public what is happening.
But again, I'll stress, we are telling the American people that
there may be disruptions in their communities. But the
organization is in place -- number one to prevent to the full
extent possible -- any major disruption, and to respond to
problems that may occur.
...
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, one of our priorities for
the coming year is the prevention of public overreaction to the
Y2K problem. And we believe this is real because it is rational,
as you mentioned, for individuals to have a Y2K contingency plan,
to have a certain amount of cash with them, to make sure they
have a certain amount of food with them, et cetera.
But we know that if 150 million Americans go to the gas station
on December 31, 1999, there is literally not enough gas in the
pipelines here in this country to fill up all those cars, to fill
up those tanks.
And then you know what happens, if people have to wait in long
lines, then a measure of hysteria could ensue.
...
Secondly, let me say that the Federal Reserve Bank in Washington
has publicly announced -- and they did this several weeks ago --
that they are printing $50,000 million to $75,000 million extra
dollars to prepare. Because they understand people will want to
have some more cash with them.
...
But let me comment also on a growing movement in our country --
I'm not sure if you've seen it yet in Italy -- and that is a
movement of citizens coming together to do planning, to do local
planning. They're calling it civic preparedness in their own
communities.
And we see this as a very healthy movement, and we're very
supportive of it. We're not, as you might imagine, very excited
about giving lots of attention to those people who say they need
to buy a gun and move to the hills and take their dried food with
them and their generator and they'll live on their own and
they'll be protected through the Year 2000. We're not too excited
about that group.
But there are some very responsible Americans coming forward and
saying that our communities have got to come together and --
number one -- put positive pressure on their local leaders to do
the work they have to do to fix their system and develop their
contingency plans over the coming months.
And number two, they want to make sure as a community that if
there are a few days of difficult transition into the Year 2000
that, for example, you might store some extra food in a local
school building. Or make sure that there is a building that has a
generator where people could go to as a shelter.
So we are supportive of these efforts that are grass roots, that
are growing from the grass roots.
...
Product Name: WASHINGTON FILE
Document Type: TEXT
Keywords: Y2K; ABRAMS; INDUSTRY; COMPUTERS
Thematic Codes: 5B
Languages: ENGLISH
Originating Team: 98122301.TGI
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roleigh Martin ourworld.compuserve.com
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