The Millennium Spin

ohn Koskinen knows what he'll be doing at the turn of the millennium. He'll take the last flight out from Washington in the evening to New York.

He won't be going there to participate in the revelry in Times Square. He'll be trying to prove that the head of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion is confident that air travel still will be safe despite the most publicized-and most difficult-date change in history.

Koskinen's New Year's holiday plan is just one small part of the message government is sending the public about the year 2000 problem. Virtually every agency has geared up information outreach programs, which will expand as Jan. 1 draws closer.

The government's basic message on the year 2000 is that people should prepare for it as if it were a winter storm:

• Stock disaster supplies to last several days, including food, bottled water and medicine.
• Have some extra cash on hand.
• Keep the car's tank more than half full.
• Have blankets, flashlights and extra batteries handy.
• Be prepared to use alternative cooking devices or to relocate to a shelter for warmth.

However, while federal officials are generally positive about the state of Y2K preparedness in most sectors of the economy, they have to temper their optimism because of the often sketchy information on compliance from the private sector, especially from small businesses, local governments and utilities.

Agencies are finding that no matter what they say or do, some people will conclude that things will be much worse than the government is letting on. It's important, officials say, to find the delicate balance between preventing unwarranted fear and leaving agencies vulnerable to criticism that they aren't providing enough details on how to deal with the problem.

Late Start?

Critics say agencies have simply been too quiet about the millennium bug.

"I don't think we've seen a lot of information for public consumption coming out of the departments," says Don Meyer, spokesman for the Senate's special Year 2000 committee. "It just hasn't been happening. That is a bit disappointing. It's almost getting to the point where it's not going to be an issue, because we're getting so close to the deadline.

"What we've been pushing for, and the public has been asking for, over the last year, is why aren't we seeing public service announcements? Why isn't the President on television talking about this?"

But executive branch officials argue that the public wasn't much interested in the year 2000 until 1999 rolled around. For example, through last year, the Federal Information Center-the government's primary point of contact for general inquiries from the public-received only 20 to 30 calls a month on the subject. By contrast, the federal Y2K hot line (888-USA-4-Y2K), established in January, received more than 100,000 calls in its first three months of operation.

Similarly, in the spring of 1998, the Federal Trade Commission published a Federal Register notice seeking information about what people thought might happen with retail products and financial matters that aren't controlled by the banking regulatory agencies. But the agency got so little feedback that it had to hold meetings with industry and trade groups to try to define the issues.

"I think people are interested now, but the huge bulk of interest is going to come later in the year," says Elaine Kolish, associate director of the enforcement division in the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection and the agency's representative on the Y2K Council's consumer affairs working group.

Agencies are continuing to fine-tune their Y2K communications. They are putting out new publications, adding information to Web sites, and setting up hot lines and fax-back services. Federal officials who speak before trade associations and other groups are incorporating Y2K into their presentations. A large part of what they are doing, though, involves reworking information that previously was available but was not necessarily comprehensible to the general public.

"A number of agencies are still in the process of making more consumer-friendly material available. Many of them had information on their Web sites that was good, but in some instances was directed at their sophisticated users or vendors," says Kolish. "Not all agencies deal with the consumer on the street as their typical customer, so they may be less familiar with material for that type of audience."

"There may not be crystal-clear answers in every instance," she adds. "But silence can be more panic-inducing than saying, 'It's not fixed yet but we're working on it.' "

Striking a Balance

The potential for panic is a common concern among federal officials involved in Y2K communication efforts. A recent Time/CNN poll showed that half of Americans plan to take extra cash out of the bank before the end of the year and a third say they'll stockpile food. The Federal Reserve Board has ordered an extra $50 billion in currency-about a third as much as is now in circulation within the United States-but hoarding could cause shortages of food, gas and other essentials even if production and distribution systems work perfectly.

"That's a particularly sensitive issue," says Catherine Woteki, undersecretary for food safety at the Agriculture Department and co-chair of the food supply working group under the Y2K Council. "Panic buying of food in the last several weeks of the year is probably a bigger problem than the small disruptions that could possibly occur because of the Y2K problem. [When you try] to get across that message of having a few days worth of food available, that immediately gets interpreted as being that we're recommending that people hoard food."

Officials of other agencies agree that the challenge is to spur the public to take prudent steps without setting off a panic.

"That's always a concern of ours," says Donna Gambrell, associate director for compliance and consumer affairs at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the agency's communications project manager for the year 2000. "We can certainly say that the vast majority of our financial institutions are on track. [But] as a regulatory agency we cannot divulge information that would be confidential. We find ourselves in a delicate position, because people always want to know more. That's one of the reasons why we encourage banks to go out to the public."

"There are a lot of thoughtful people who say we ought to tell people they should be prepared for two or three weeks of outages," Koskinen says. "My view is our goal is not to lull people into a false sense of security, but we ought not to cause them to do things [when] there's no evidence for national purposes [they] are necessary.

"The risk is that if we start saying nationally that this is going to be a big catastrophe when we don't think it is, or if people start to think that's the reality, they could create a self-fulfilling prophecy by creating shortages, whether it's taking their money out of the bank, or taking money out of the markets or buying more food or any commodity. If 100 million Americans all decide to do one thing
differently in any one week, economically that's a big problem."

Balanced against the concern over stirring panic is the obligation of the government to tell what it knows, even if what it knows isn't exactly comforting. For example, a Year 2000 Council report issued earlier this year said that most other countries "are significantly behind the United States. . . . Lack of progress on the international front may lead to failures that could affect the United States, especially in areas that rely upon cross-border networks such as finance, telecommunications and transportation."

Likewise, an Energy Department review in January of a report from the North American Electric Reliability Council reached the hardly confidence-inspiring conclusion that "we can be cautiously optimistic about the prospects for [the electrical] industry meeting its Y2K challenge." (A later test of the power grid produced more reassuring results).

Similarly, a report earlier this year from the special Senate committee expressed concern about the ability of local communities to provide 911 and emergency services, noting that the health care industry "lags significantly in its Y2K preparations compared with other sectors," and concluded that "public transit could be seriously disrupted."

Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Year 2000 Committee, has likened the task of communicating on the Y2K issue to "striking the balance between being Paul Revere and Chicken Little."

Complicating that task is the difficulty agencies have experienced in getting accurate information to give out. Compliance efforts in the private sector are largely self-directed and self-policed by industries and even individual companies. Such caveats as "industry representatives say" are common throughout the government's Y2K materials.

The rule of thumb, says Meyer, is that the less eager an industry is to talk about its progress on Y2K, the more reason there is for concern about its compliance. Also, the smaller the business or utility, the less likely it was to take early and strong action on the year 2000 issue.

Public Skepticism

One of the government's primary means of communicating what it has learned-especially to those who do not have Internet access-is the Federal Information Center's Y2K hot line. The system features an automated phone tree with information on about a dozen topics, plus the option of speaking to a live operator, and takes orders for Y2K publications from various agencies. It also serves as an informal means to take the public's pulse on the issue.

About a tenth of callers "are showing significant anxiety or panic" and about half are "very badly informed about what the problem is, what its implications are and its probable consequences," says project director Stephen Smith of Biospherics Inc., the contractor that operates the Federal Information Center. "People hear from other sources that they really need to hunker down and prepare for a long-term obstruction in basic services-utilities, health care, food supplies, things like that. They are asking either for some confirmation or refutation of that."

Callers are told that while there may be glitches, there probably will be no long-term, widespread collapses of the national infrastructure. Many of them feel better just for having talked to someone about the issue, Smith says. But others don't believe what the operators tell them.

"There's a measurable number of callers who say, 'I know that is not true. You're just trying to make excuses for the government. We're in big trouble.' "

"I think there is a level of skepticism out there about government in general," says Rick Weiland, Denver regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who recently hosted one of the agency's series of conferences on Y2K emergency preparedness. "I don't think it's nearly as high as it used to be. People do believe a little more that the government can do some things effectively. What we heard more than anything is that the biggest concern is public information-making sure people know about it, know what kinds of steps they can personally take to avoid any major disruption in their own lives."

Nevertheless, Weiland notes, at the same time FEMA's workshop in Denver was going on, there was a Y2K exposition nearby with more than 100 vendors selling water filters, electrical generators, freeze-dried food and other supplies for just the type of long-haul self-sufficiency that the federal government says won't be necessary.

"I thought that was a little ironic," says Weiland. "There are folks out there that are trying to stir up hysteria and create panic, which results in the problems that we're trying to avoid."

John Miller, FEMA regional director in Kansas City, Mo., agrees. "The clamor of 'the sky is falling' is coming from some of the local militia, some of the anti-government forces, some churches, saying the government is lying to you again and you need to be prepared," he says. "We, on the other hand, are working with the states and the locals to try and counter that."

Rumors and Scams

Increasingly, agencies are focusing on combating misinformation. The Internet, especially, is rife with warnings of food shortages, power blackouts, water supply cutoffs and other disruptions of basic services that allegedly could go on for months or longer. Those messages often are accompanied by sales pitches for survivalist supplies and even gold bullion.

The Y2K Council has taken the unusual step for a government entity of posting a list of rumors and responses on its World Wide Web site (www.y2k.gov/java/whatsnew1.html), including assurances that nuclear missiles won't launch accidentally, elevators generally will not be affected, the Federal Aviation Administration will not ground all flights overnight on Dec. 31, and pacemakers won't stop ticking.

Agencies also increasingly are putting out warnings about scams. For example, phone solicitors have popped up, claiming to represent credit card companies and saying they need a card number to verify the card will work after Jan. 1, 2000. Others pretend to be calling from banks, saying they are having trouble getting in compliance and recommending that individuals transfer money into an account whose number they give.

Agencies say they are being careful to send their own employees the same messages they give to the general public. There have been reports of employees being told to take preventive steps beyond the advice being given to the public, such as paying bills early and stocking up on cash. Officials say such extra precautions are necessary only for employees stationed overseas or in remote areas where utility failures might be more likely.

Moreover, says Koskinen, civil servants, like other Americans, "are free to make their own judgments" about Y2K's likely effects. "I'd be the last person to tell people to say something they don't believe. It's perfectly all right for federal employees to have their own perspective as we go forward. I've said that even about people buying lots in New Mexico. My concern is to make sure people are informed consumers of information."

As for Koskinen himself, when he lands in New York on New Year's Eve, he says he probably won't be in the mood to party.

"I have a feeling what I'm going to do is find a convenient hotel room so I can take the first plane out the next morning," he says. "I'm not sure how much celebrating I'm going to do."

Eric Yoder is a Washington-area freelance journalist who has covered the federal government for 17 years.