http://www.y2knewswire.com/19991104.asp

To: Secretary, PA Public Utility Commission From: Mike Ewall Date: 4/30/1999 Re: Confidential Records I request to review the filings related to Y2K by PECO Energy, Met. Ed., PP&L, Duquesne Light, and PJM which have been claimed to be confidential. This request is made pursuant to the PA PUC's procedure manual section 206(F)(3).

Mike Ewall

Not a whacko, oops, I mean extremist, in sight, CD and Flint.

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), November 06, 1999

Answers

Which CD, are you referring to? There are two of us who post on this board

-- CD (CDOKeefe@aol.com), November 06, 1999.

CD, not@here.com

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), November 06, 1999.

Here's the hotlink, very interesting read.

http://www.y2knewswire. com/19991104.asp

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), November 06, 1999.

What the heck, electric power isn't important in Pennsylvania, I guess...the Amish seem to make do without it.!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 06, 1999.

This article has implications that goes way beyond Pennsylvania, and it should be posted in its entirety here to archive it before it expires on that link.

Allow me.

(Fair use for informational purposes etc...)

Nukes Say No!

November 4, 1999

"Why are Pennsylvania's nuclear utilities keeping their Y2K files secret? What are they hiding?"
-- Mike Ewall, nuclear safety activist

"The security and economic harm that may occur... substantially outweighs the public interest."
-- The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's explanation on why they won't release Y2K documentation to the public

While utility companies, banks, government agencies and Fortune 1000 firms claim to be Y2K-compliant, none of them, to our knowledge, are willing to publicly document how they got there. Every single time a private citizen has asked for public documentation proving Y2K compliance, that request has been denied or turned down.

Today, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PA PUC) added their name to the list of hybrid government / industry associations who refuse to release any documentation about Y2K compliance.

In April of this year, nuclear safety activist Mike Ewall filed a petition asking to see, "...filings related to Y2K by PECO Energy, Met. Ed., PP&L, Duquesne Light, and PJM." (Pennsylvania electric utility companies.)

This request would have forced the Pennsylvania utilities to disclose this Y2K-related information unless they took pre-emptive action by filing "Protective Orders."

On June 9, 1999, PJM Interconnection (and shortly thereafter, the other utility companies named in the petition), filed Protective Orders with the PA PUC. These orders, if approved, would effectively "seal up" any Y2K-related documentation from the Pennsylvania utility companies.

In explaining these actions, PJM said, among other things, "...it would be detrimental to have this detailed information that was shared with the Commission released to every individual or entity who simply requests [it]." The company even refused to release the name of their Year 2000 Project Manager, claiming it would "cause havoc."

On June 29, 1999, Mike Ewall challenged the protective orders, requesting they be denied. In this challenge, Ewall says, "It is PJM's responsibility to assure transmission of electricity to the customers of the aforereferenced utilities. Therefore any information concerning Y2K problems that PJM, in its Attachment C, submitted to the PA PUC are likewise matters of public interest and should be made available to members of the public upon request."

Today, the PA PUC held a brief meeting and voted to accept the Protective Orders for all public utilities named in the petition request. Discussions were reportedly held for, "approximately ten seconds," and a vote was issued. It was unanimous: all four PA PUC Commissioners agreed that the public should be restricted from witnessing the Y2K-related information in question.

Present at the decision was Scott Portzline, a nuclear safety activist. He told Y2K Newswire, "This is a slap in the face to the citizens of this Commonwealth, the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Y2K and the GAO, who are all recommending a full disclosure."

Portzline adds, "There hasn't been independent verification of how they came to the conclusion they were Y2K compliant or ready. [These petitions] would give us the ability to double check what they're saying and challenge what they're saying in court."

For this reason, Portzline explains, utilities don't want to disclose anything. "If they had to disclose how they arrived at these conclusions," he says, "we would find they were negligent. That makes them especially vulnerable to lawsuits."

POSTPONE, THEN DENY
The PA PUC has a working tactic: postpone, then deny. Consider this timeline of requests for the Y2K documentation in question:

4/30 - Request filed

5/27 - PUC Chair finally forwards request to the 5 utilities

6/14 - Utilities respond

7/6 - Citizens respond to utility responses

7/14 - Sent to office of ALJ

7/29 - Conference call cancelled because they "have enough to go on"

8/26 - PUC meeting: decision postponed

9/16 - PUC meeting: decision postponed

9/26 - PUC meeting: decision postponed

10/15 - PUC meeting: decision postponed

11/4 - 4-0 decision to support recommendations of PUC law bureau (denying access to the public)

IF EVERYBODY IS COMPLIANT, WHY DO THEY FIGHT DISCLOSURE?
This incident aptly demonstrates one of the great contradictions in the arguments of Y2K Deniers, three-day-snowstorm theorists, and other head-in-the-sand commentators: if these organizations are really Y2K-compliant, why are they fighting disclosure of the information that would prove it? They have gone to great lengths -- employing expensive lawyers, constructing Protective Order requests, and filing with the PUC -- to prevent disclosure of any information that would detail or verify their Y2K efforts.

In this way, utility companies seem to share the same beliefs as the banking industry: the public doesn't have a right to know. Just trust us! Both industries have refused to release details to the public, instead issuing sanitized press releases that imply a high state of Y2K readiness without actually claiming it or supporting it with any documentation.

Reasonable people can only conclude that these organizations are hiding behind a wall of legal maneuvers to avoid having to admit they aren't fully Y2K-compliant.

NO ORGANIZATION WILL PROVIDE DOCUMENTATION
The truth about Y2K compliance is fascinating. Y2K Newswire has never seen -- not once -- documentation from any large organization showing a completed third-party audit and a completed checklist covering remediation, implementation and end-to-end testing. Not one.

We maintain that no large organization in the United States of America has conducted full-scale, simultaneous end-to-end testing of all software and hardware systems. It simply hasn't been done! The largest test conducted, to our knowledge, was done by the Pentagon and involved a mere 2% of their systems.

Today we are 57 days away from the Y2K rollover.

Yet, no organization is able to demonstrate to the public that it is Y2K-compliant. Not one. None. Zippo. Nada.

Y2K Newswire, which is arguably one of the leading Y2K news journalism e-zines on the Internet, has never been contacted by a single organization offering to Fedex, fax or e-mail any sort of documentation relating to their compliance efforts. In fact, when we've pursued such documentation, we have been turned away, lied to, shut down, insulted, and hung up on.

Is this the behavior of fully-compliant organizations? Clearly it is not.

Rather, it is the behavior of organizations who are:

1. Still not Y2K compliant
2. Desperate to cover up that fact
3. Likely to suffer critical failures next year
4. Hoping to postpone the truth for as long as possible

GET PREPARED
This situation strengthens the Y2K Newswire message: get prepared. Clearly, no large organization is going to describe their actual state of compliance to the public. We, the People, are going to go right into the Y2K rollover having no evidence that any organization is Y2K-compliant. And as we have seen here, this organizations will fight disclosure to the very last minute.

They don't want you to know the truth about their Y2K compliance. Why, do you suppose, that is?

# End #

-- (Anon E. Moose@world.net), November 06, 1999.

OR- I know too little about "nuclear safety activist Mike Ewall" to judge if he is what you would call a whacko or not. (I also doubt that you're in any better position to judge him than I am.) I imagine someone *could* make a case that he is indeed a whacko based on his insistence on getting confidential security-related information into the hands of the public (and therefore any nutcase/terrorist/enemy of the state). Aside from that...

As I questioned you in another thread, did Jeff Rense offer you an explanation as to WHY this guy's petition was denied? I noticed that Y2knewswire, true to form, conveniently avoided that part of the story too. If you are truly as interested in this story as you appear, you may want to read through the following protective order petitions written by the companies Ewall was shotgunning. It explains many of the reasons they don't want to suffer fools such as this. Different companies have given various different but similar reasons, therefore I would suggest you read through them all. My guess is that you are predisposed to immediately dismiss all of their comments as nothing but spin. Indeed, *some* of it did sound rather "weak", but much of it did make a lot of sense. You also need to keep in mind that their intended audience was the PA Public Utility Commission, a body that is very familiar with the confidentiality problems these companies face.

http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/gpu-po.html

http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/duq-po.html

http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/pjm-po.html

http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/peco-po.html

http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/ppl-po.html

-- CD (not@here.com), November 07, 1999.

CD (not@now), Thanks for the links. Did you read any of Mr. Ewall's responses to the various protective order requests? Like this one: http:// www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/answer-to-ppl.html

Somehow, I don't get the impression he's "shotgunning", as you put it. I'd say he has some legitimate concerns with their disclosure, and was more than willing to leave any actual 'harmful to their business/ useful to competitors' info out of it. Unless, of course, they really aren't ready with that nuke. That would be detrimental to their business no matter who's reading it.

Just a thought.

-- harl (harlanquin@aol.hell), November 07, 1999.

harl- Upon your suggestion, I did read Mr. Ewall's responses to "some" of the protective order requests. (A response to *each* request was either not available online or was not submitted by Mr. Ewall.)

After reviewing these, I came away with an opinion similar to what I held after reading the companies' replies. That is; some of it did sound rather "weak", but much of it did make sense.

It should be noted that Mr Ewell had the advantage of rebutting the companies' arguments "after the fact". I would find it very interesting to see what the companies' responses would be if they were given the opportunity for rebuttal of Mr. Ewings arguments.

Can't find where I had read it but I saw a comment from the Utilities Commission which basically summed it up for me...

[paraprhasing here] Although they are in agreement that the public has a right to information, the release of certain specific confidential information must be weighed against the adverse conditions which would then be created. (Kinda like being between a rock and a hard place at times.)

Just my thoughts. (By the way harl, I appreciated your "civil" reply.)

-- CD (not@here.com), November 07, 1999.

>harl- Upon your suggestion, I did read Mr. Ewall's responses to >"some" of the protective order requests. (A response to *each* >request was either not available online or was not submitted by Mr. >Ewall.)

Understood. It also would have been a Really tedious way to spend a few hours. Most of the requests, from both sides, follow a very similar format. And my tolerance for bureaucratic language has taken a nosedive, recently.

>After reviewing these, I came away with an opinion similar to what I >held after reading the companies' replies. That is; some of it did >sound rather "weak", but much of it did make sense.

::snip, see above:: Yes CD, I agree there were varying levels of 'relevence' in there, but I'd say both sides were equally guilty of that. I was under the impression that the utilities did have the advantage of addressing Mr. Ewall's reasoning in talking directly to the PUC, but I could easily be wrong, there.

Through all of this mess, I kept coming back to one of his positions that particularly struck home. Specifically (parentheses mine):

"Duquesne (fill in any company you wish) has provided no arguments for protection (from public disclosure) that outweigh the public interest."

Obviously, the Pa PUC feels differently, and this is my biggest issue. The PUC has acted reprehensibly, in my view, as an oversite body for the public. For more information (just consider the source), check here: http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/index.html

Fwiw, the specific questions that he wanted answered from one company are posted here: http://www.penweb.org/issues/y2k/questions.html They get more serious as you read down them, and I'd love to see the majority of these questions answered by all generation plants, not just the nukes. Whether these could be answered in such a way that didn't create "adverse conditions" to their business model is open to debate, but I think it would simply be a matter of detail. And would it help if the PUC just ruled that Every competing utility had to disclose the same information? I do fail to see how the answers to Any of these could be considered "confidential security-related information" that a terrorist could use against a plant. Perhaps I'm simply not being creative enough....

"Hey Joe, SusQ1 only has enough EDG fuel for a week! If'in we could sour that storage tank, they'd be in for it!"

Oh, and just so you know, I've seen absolutely nothing about this in any local (Western Pa) media. No tv, radio, or newspaper reports at all. I don't believe any of the nukes listed will have any catastrophic accidents solely because of y2k failures, but I've a vested interest in finding current information backing that point of view up. And I would dearly like to believe they won't have any problems.... But at the moment, shutdowns wouldn't surprise me.

Oh, and civil replies always seem to generate more useful responses, imo.

-- harl (harlanquin@aol.hell), November 08, 1999.

Most of the time, that is.

-- harl (harlanquin@aol.hell), November 10, 1999.