Clinton, Congress agree on Y2K bill
John Podesta, the White House chief of staff, said that after working out the last sticking points, he was ready to recommend that President Clinton sign the legislation.
The business community and high-tech groups have backed the bill, which they say could save them from being besieged by billions of dollars in lawsuits from Y2K-related problems.
Mr. Clinton had voiced support for legal protections but had threatened to veto the bills coming out of the House and Senate because he said they did too little to protect consumer interests.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), who joined Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) as liaisons between congressional Republicans and the White House on the issue, said he was on the phone with Mr. Clinton at 1 a.m. EDT Tuesday to discuss progress in the talks.
There were "enormous evolutions" in the bill from its beginnings in Congress early this year, said Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), the chief Senate sponsor of the measure. "It's probably more negotiations than I have ever gone through."
Rep. Tom Davis (R., Va.), who authored the tougher House bill, said the final product had been "watered down," but he also said the White House "made significant movement over the last 24 hours."
The bill would give companies 90 days to fix computers before lawsuits could be filed and would encourage mediation efforts. It also would cap punitive damages for small businesses and ensure that in most cases defendants would be held liable for only that share of the damage they caused.
In one of the last issues worked out in the negotiations, the monetary threshold for a class-action lawsuit was raised from $1 million to $10 million.
The sponsors said they hope to get the compromise bill through the House and Senate this week so it can be presented to the president before Congress leaves at the end of the week for its July 4 recess.
Lawmakers and White House officials had been negotiating since late last week; just after noon on Tuesday, the negotiators narrowed the differences down to two outstanding issues, lawmakers and aides said.
Talks over the bill spilled into the halls of the U.S. Capitol as Mr. McCain prematurely called a press conference to announce the outcome of the negotiations.
After leaving the briefing, Mr. McCain ran into Messrs. Dodd and Wyden and continued negotiations with White House officials in the hall. Other lawmakers soon joined in before dispersing to await final word on the effort.
Many experts fear widespread disruptions may be brought about by programming shortcomings in some computers and software that fail to recognize the year 2000.