Page 18 - IAV Digital Magazine #428

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Trump Orders Government to Stop Work on Y2K Bug, 17 Years Later
By Justin Sink
Seventeen years after the Year 2000 bug came and went, the federal govern- ment will finally stop preparing for it.
The Trump adminis- tration announced Thursday that it would eliminate dozens of paper- work requirements for federal agencies, including an obscure rule that requires them to continue providing updates on their prepared- ness for a bug that afflicted some com- puters at the turn of the century. As another example, the Pentagon will be
freed from a require- ment that it file a report every time a small business ven- dor is paid, a task that consumed some 1,200 man- hours every year.
“We’re looking for stuff everyone agrees is a com- plete waste of time,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters at the White House. He likened the move to the government “cleaning out our closets.”
Deregulation is a major ambition of President Donald
Trump’s agenda; as one example, he has signed more laws rolling back his predecessor’s regu- lations than the combined total of the three previous presidents since the process was estab- lished by the 1999 Congressional Review Act.
Seven of the more than 50 paperwork requirements the White House elimi- nated on Thursday dealt with the Y2K bug, according to a memo OMB released. Officials at the agency estimate the changes could save tens of thou- sands of man-hours
across the federal government.
The agency didn’t provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser, acknowledged that it isn’t a lot since those requirements are already often ignored in practice.
Mulvaney said he hopes that by pub- licly eliminating the rules, departments and agencies will be inspired to review their own policies and procedures to reduce inefficien- cies.
“Many agencies have forgotten how to deregulate,” he said. “It’s been so long since some- body asked them to look backwards.”
The effort isn’t intended to reduce the federal work- force, Mulvaney said, but should free up employees for more productive tasks. He said his agency would begin a second review of requirements imposed by presi- dential executive orders and by Congress, with the hope of identifying more that could be eliminated.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine