Steny Hoyer: “Madam Speaker, there has been a suggestion that the administration did not exercise its responsibilities with respect to…”

“Madam Speaker, there has been a suggestion that the administration did not exercise its responsibilities with respect to the Y2K problem. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has pointed out that that included the total of about almost $5 billion for emergency and contingency spending in their budget, that $1.2 billion was specifically requested for Y2K, and that another $3.25 billion was requested for Bosnia contingency spending and also Y2K. That is not described, so neither I nor anybody else can specifically say what figure one can apply. But the fact is the administration, as all governments and all private sectors, has been working this issue very hard. But the issue is not who is to blame: Did the Reagan administration or the Bush administration or the Clinton administration purchase incorrect hardware or software. In fact, we had a hearing before the Committee on House Oversight that the new leadership, Republican leadership, came in and bought some new computerware in 1995, which is outdated. We are going to have to replace them. That is because technology is moving very quickly. This is not to blame anybody. It is to say that that decision is in error, recognized in error yesterday before the committee in testimony by the administrator. With no criticism of that, we need to move on to make sure that, technologically, we can handle our information systems properly.”