Senate Democrats Criticize Republican Intransigence on Cybersecurity
The Senate debate over cybersecurity legislation grew increasingly partisan as Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said during a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday that some Republicans are not taking the cyberthreat seriously. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters he agreed with Reid and suggested there are political reasons for the Republican opposition to the Senate Cybersecurity Act (S-2105). But sponsors of the alternative Senate cybersecurity bill, the SECURE IT Act (S-2151), urged the majority leader to bring a bill to the floor for debate and see where the chips fall.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Reid said he plans to bring S-2105 to a vote and urged his Republican colleagues to help secure the nation’s core critical infrastructure networks from cyberattack. “I put everyone on notice: We are going to move this bill,” Reid said without saying when. A Reid spokesman told us it’s “possible” the bill could come to the floor sometime this work period ending June 29.
Reid said more Republicans need to start taking the cyberthreat to America “seriously” and “participate productively in the conversation, instead of criticizing the current approach.” The entire national security establishment agrees on the “urgent need to protect this vital infrastructure,” Reid said. “And yet some key Republicans continue to argue we should do nothing to secure critical infrastructure.” Sponsors of SECURE IT have ardently opposed any such industry regulations, and instead argued for greater cyberthreat information sharing between the government and private sector.
Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain, R-Ariz., laughed when asked if he agreed with Reid’s statement about the GOP commitment to cybersecurity. “My recommendation to the majority leader is to take the legislation to the floor and let us debate and amend and let the Senate work its will.” Senate Commerce Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, told us that Republicans are taking cyberthreats “very seriously. … If we had the ability to get a reasonable bill put forward I think we would have a bill on the floor. We are far apart on the approach but we are not far apart on the need to do it.” Both McCain and Hutchison are SECURE IT sponsors.
There is a “possibility” that Republicans are opposing critical infrastructure protections for political reasons, Rockefeller told reporters. “It gets back to that business [of] let[ting] nothing happen that helps [President Barack] Obama. … There is no reason for it. I think some of them are secretly for it but don’t want to say so.”
Rockefeller said he met with a group of Republicans and Democrats Tuesday to try to hammer out a compromise on the legislation. “The question is still ‘are you going to do major covered infrastructure?'” he said. “It’s very simple. The entire government, the entire national security establishment, the entire military establishment all want it.” If critical infrastructure is excluded, “then you are excluding all the grids, all the water systems, all the [power] plant systems, all the hospital systems and all the air traffic control systems.” Rockefeller said he was not “totally satisfied” with efforts by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., to come to a compromise over cybersecurity standards.
Kyl and Whitehouse are working to draft language that would provide incentives for owners and operators of core critical infrastructure systems to meet basic cybersecurity standards. But Whitehouse told us compromise on the issue of cybersecurity standards has been elusive. “There is really nothing much to talk about until we come up with something,” he said. “We're trying to work for a compromise.”