This article is from today's Y2K News and Analysis. The NERC site they list at the bottom of the page has already pulled the document; at least I got a blank page when I tried to retrieve it. Y2K News says they have a printed copy.

I am very interested to here your take on this.

3/4/1999 - NERC exposed! April 9 electric utility Y2K drill may be rigged

UPCOMING ELECTRIC INDUSTRY Y2K DRILL APPEARS TO BE A FRAUD

"Do not make the drill too complex. We want to have a successful and meaningful story for publication." -- discussion points from a Y2K drill preparation guide posted at the North American Electric Reliability Council's web site

[news]

A scheduled Y2K drill by the electric industry on April 9 appears to have been rigged to deceive the public and produce 100%-certain positive results. The plan is apparently designed to engineer a 'success story' to "instill public confidence." Electric utility companies are encouraged to run through the drill ahead of time, to avoid scheduling maintenance during the drill, and to only test those systems they are confident will result in no problems. This, revealed by a document posted on the web site of the North American Electric Reliability Council's (NERC) named, "Y2K drill preparation strategies."

First publicized by Gary North, and then picked up by various Y2K awareness web sites, the document is a startling revelation that provides rare evidence of a dangerous deception. It reveals -- in plain language -- that the outcome of the test will have been determined ahead of time, saying, "Prior to the drill, test the system(s) that will be exercised during the drill" and adds, "Verify that there are no real security issues during the time of the drill."

DESIGN THE DRILL TO ACHIEVE THE DESIRED OUTCOME

The document also urges power companies to make sure they don't schedule maintenance during the drill and urges utilities to think about, "...what will the final report look like. Work backwards from this in the development of the drill procedures." In other words, make sure you design the drill to achieve the positive outcome you want.

In science, this method of designing the experiment to achieve a desired outcome is commonly called, "fraudulent."

KEEP IT SIMPLE, WE WANT A SUCCESS STORY

The report says, "Do not make the drill too complex. We want to have a successful and meaningful story for publication." It also advises to, "Identify the 'success parameters' before the test."

More importantly, it tells electric utilities to go easy on the drill, "Each individual utility should access their capabilities in determining the extent of testing they will perform. Do not bite off more than you can chew."

This appears to be an instruction to limit the drill to systems they know will not malfunction, avoiding scenarios that might produce unknowns. It also apparently allows each utility to independently determine what equipment or procedures they will test. That choice could be anything from a single system to all systems. In other words, each electric utility will be designing its own test, encouraged to test only those systems they want to.

In statistics, this is called a self-selected sample set, and it renders any conclusions meaningless.

APRIL 9 TEST MAY BE A FRAUD

This document appears to indicate the upcoming electric utility industry test on April 9, 1999 is a fraud -- engineered by an industry working to deceive the public and present a false success story to claim Y2K readiness.

It confirms the worst fears of those following Y2K: that there may indeed be a coordinated effort to deceive the public through engineered 'tests' with pre-determined outcomes. Any test that might produce a negative result is to be avoided at all costs. The goal: achieve a public relations success. Unmentioned: actually repairing electric utilities, making them Y2K-compliant.

It also gives new life to the all-important question of the compliance of the power industry. If Y2K isn't a problem, why do you need to rig the test?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

[commentary] In this scenario, a "successful" drill is meaningless. More precisely, here's what it means:

A successful test: all systems self-selected by electric utilities, pre-tested to make sure they had no problems, actually had no problems. Systems that were not tested also showed no problems because they were not tested.

Obviously, it's doublespeak at its worst.

This document is currently posted on the NERC web site at:

ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/drill-preparation-strategies.pdf

But in case the document is removed, we have also saved a copy (and urge you to do the same). The document has no copyright indication.

PERCEPTION, NOT COMPLIANCE, IS THE GOAL

The strategy seemingly outlined in this document is not only dangerous to the public, it is a violation of the public trust. At a time when banks are desperately needing the public to believe them, the NERC is destroying public confidence outright. Should people learn of the NERC deception and carry that distrust over to the banking industry, it could add significantly to the risk of bank runs. This is precisely why it is critical to level with the public, and why Y2KNEWSWIRE.COM urged John Koskinen on December 8, 1998, to do exactly that. It seems that lying has worked so well for so long, it never occurred to these people that lies have consequences or that people will ultimately learn the truth when the calendar rolls over to 1/1/2000.

NERC, it seems, is willing to take the risk that their testing strategy won't be exposed. Rather than working to protect the public safety through rigorous, real-world testing, the industry is apparently fabricating pre-arranged, lenient test scenarios guaranteed not to fail. The result? It feeds the public an illusion of security when, in fact, the electric utilities as a whole may not by compliant at all.

Yes, public faith is important, but it must not be the only goal. Faith must stem from actual achieved compliance status, not from public relations campaigns and falsified compliance claims.

CAUSE AND EFFECT; REVERSED YET AGAIN

The industry seems to ignore this relationship:

CAUSE: systems are fixed

EFFECT: people gain faith in the industry

Rather, they seem to believe the following relationship is true:

CAUSE: get people to believe everything is fixed

EFFECT: things will then be fixed

As you can see, they've got it backwards. Also, the lie-to-the-public argument holds no water with the power industry. In the banking industry, at least, officials justify lying to the public out of a concern of avoiding bank runs. They say they have to deceive the public in order to save the banks.

But in the power industry, you can't stockpile electricity. There is no excuse for not leveling with the public on this one. And the industry can't claim alarmists are going to cause it to fall. This time, only one thing really counts: compliance. There is no justification for deception.

NO PUNISHMENT FOR LYING

[commentary]

So far, on Y2K, there has been no punishment for lying. Agencies and companies caught lying about compliance are simply told, "Don't do that again." And those making false SEC statements receive only warnings, not harsh fines. However, there is a tremendous price to pay for telling the truth: most notably, loss of customers and falling stock prices.

In this way, lying is encouraged and truth-telling is shunned. It is this lack of accountability that encourages organizations to engineer false Y2K drills in order to pull off a public relations coup. The frustrating part is that it just might work.

On April 10, 1999, watch for a victory announcement by the power industry. They will claim they passed a rigorous Y2K test and everything worked fine. No problems were found, they'll say. Of course, you will know the announcement is a deception: the goal was a public relations victory, not rigorous Y2K compliance testing.

Millions of Americans will use the false test results to justify non-preparedness, saying, "See? It's fixed." And as a result, if Y2K turns out to be a large problem, these people may find themselves in serious danger. Unnecessary deaths might result, for example, in a hospital where administrators decided not to install a backup power supply after reading a report about the "successful" electric utility test of April 9.

THAT'S WHY THEY NEED Y2K IMMUNITY

Such a scenario would give rise to expensive negligence lawsuits as families of dead hospital patients sue the electric utilities. But if widespread Y2K-immunity is granted to the industry, all such cases will be automatically thrown out. In other words, the industry would have no legal accountability, perhaps further encouraging an emphasis on public perception rather than repairing systems.

HERE'S A LEGITIMATE Y2K DRILL

[commentary]

The industry should put Y2KNEWSWIRE.COM in charge of designing the surprise test. On the selected day, we would hit each electric utility with any number of unexpected problems -- similar to the way a commercial aircraft pilot rides out a simulator, braving hundreds of randomly-selected failure scenarios. We would hit the electric utilities with random equipment failures, surges in the power lines, disruptions in the power grid, delays in deliveries of coal, loss of telecommunications, scarcity of spare parts and staffing disruptions.

Then we would combine these tests with regular maintenance schedules, simulated calls from angry customers, and errors in the accounting systems.

That's called a real test. If your life depends on electricity, this is the kind of test you should want the industry to pass.

The test outlined in the NERC document doesn't even compare: it allows electric utilities to decide -- on their own -- what systems to test, then to pre-test those systems to make sure they work. On April 9, they simply run through the same test they've already determined will work. No surprises, no failures.

A real-world, robust Y2K test would hit electric utilities with hundreds of crisis scenarios and equipment failures, forcing them to really learn how to deal with such scenarios. Go rent the movie, "Apollo 13." Watch the Lunar Module simulator scene. That's what we need to put the electric utility through, not some wimpy self-selected test designed to achieve a public relations victory.

Folks, the deception is coming to an end. In nine months, spin won't matter any more. And at that time, should you find yourself in the dark, you will desperately wish the NERC had actually conducted real-world testing rather than messing with your mind.

-- Anonymous, March 05, 1999

Answers

I repeat something I said not long ago. You will never find or know the truth and/or the extent of the problem. The only truth you know for sure is what you are doing to prepare yourself and family.

When the April 9th test results are out, people on this site will debate them. Knowing the tests are a set-up will make the debate useless. I will skip over the debate and use the time to pack some more food. Marcella

-- Anonymous, March 05, 1999

This issue was discussed thoroughly last month. The statements are not official NERC policy but just talking points proposed by individuals at a NERC conference. A lot of jumping to conclusions that seems to typify normal media coverage of euy2k. Bob

-- Anonymous, March 05, 1999

Technology is not the problem. People are. Control the people and you control the problem. Ordinary citizens can't do anything about utility Y2K. They can only make trouble now and sue later. Liability limitation legislation is spreading like wildfire. Ironically, there has been very little resistance to governmental limitation on liability but great debate over private civil limitation on liability. The reason for the resistance...companies would have less incentive to fix the problem before it hits. The mock tests give the utilities grounds to argue that they have made progress towards fixing the problem within their control but there is an element of risk outside their control which is unforeseeable so they should be protected from liability. It's also good croud control to defer mass hyseria as long as possible.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 1999

Just how does one "control" the people, when one can't control one's self.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 1999

Joseph,

Let me see if I got this straight - utilities have no incentive to fix Y2K bugs beforehand if they are protected from litigation?

Do you think utilities have achieved an approx. 98% service reliability level without significant cost? or without an inherent concern for keeping the lights on?

Utilities know that customers will soon be able to choose their electricity supplier. Incremental quality is not a factor in customer choice - there is only 60 Hz 120/240V - no K-Mart vs Macy's, Mercedes vs. Hyundai. The only factors are price and service quality. DON'T YOU THINK THAT THE UTILITY EXECS MAY HAVE CONSIDERED THAT A MASSIVE Y2K FAILURE MIGHT BE A BIT OF A PUBLIC RELATIONS PROBLEM???

Let's see, I can fix a problem ahead of time, save a public relations melt-down, all using normal time costs, OR - I can wait for disaster to strike, let my competition have a FREE marketing campaign (choose us - we cared enough to remediate!), AND pay doubletime plus holiday pay to fix what is now a crisis? GET REAL.

I encourage all to read the previous threads on this drill. It is being mis-interpreted an totally misunderstood. While it may not be as ambitious as I would like, it has reasonable goals and scope (no matter how poorly communicated the goals have been). Let's not have recurring hissy-fits.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 1999

I didn't make this up. The live debate over Y2K liability limitation is revolving around whether it would create a disincentive to remediate the problem vs. an explosion of litigation. This is Clinton's main objection to the proposed legislation. Are you saying that the utilities are not lobbying hard for liability limitation? I am not saying the utilities are not hustling to fix the problem. But the reality is that they probably won't fix it in time and the record for litigation will look much better if they give the *appearance* that they have fixed the problem and that something unforseeable happend to cause the problem or make it re-occur.

What do you mean "control one's self"? Is that some kind of potty humor. I don't get it.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 1999