Cyber Crime Protection Security Act

Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong support for finding a path to legislation that will at long last confront our Nation's 21st-century vulnerability to cyber crime, global cyber espionage, and cyber attacks. This legislation has been a long time in the making, and over the last several years I have been privileged to work with colleagues on the Senate Intelligence and Commerce Committees to address some of these consequential matters, including Senator Rockefeller, whom I collaborated with closely on cyber security legislation that passed the Commerce Committee unanimously in 2010; Senator Hutchison, who has worked tirelessly with us on these issues as ranking member on the Commerce Committee; Senators Mikulski and Whitehouse, with whom I served on the Intelligence Committee's Cyber Security Task Force; Senator Warner, who has joined me in underscoring the urgency of considering cyber security legislation in a transparent and nonpartisan manner; and Senators Lieberman and Collins, who have led the effort to craft this revised cyber security bill.

Nothing less than the very foundation of our national and economic security is at risk, and it is essential that we be prepared to defend against cyber activity that could cause catastrophic damage and loss of life in this country.

Still, some of my colleagues will undoubtedly make poignant and convincing arguments for why this Chamber should delay consideration of a comprehensive cyber security bill--stressing the complexity of the questions involved, the competing jurisdictions, and the many unknowns associated with a medium where innovation in functionality will continue to outpace innovation in security.

However, last fall the National Counterintelligence Executive warned that the rapidly accelerating rate of change in information technology and communications is likely to ``disrupt security procedures and provide new openings for collection of sensitive U.S. economic and technology information.'' In fact, the counterintelligence report cited Cisco Systems studies predicting that the number of devices such as smartphones and laptops in operation worldwide will increase from about 12.5 billion in 2010 to 25 billion in 2015.

Thus, as a result of this proliferation in the number of operating systems connected to the Internet, the Counterintelligence Executive has assessed that ``the growing complexity and density of cyber space will provide more cover for remote cyber intruders and make it even harder than today to establish attribution for these incidents.''

So as I said during the Senate Commerce Committee's bipartisan, unanimous markup of the Rockefeller-Snowe cyber security legislation over 2 years ago in early 2010, when it comes to the threat we face in cyber space, time is not on our side, and this is further evidence of that irrefutable fact.

This Congress could spend another 2 years debating the merits of various approaches and continuing to operate based on a reactive hodgepodge of government directives and bureaucratic confusion. But at the end of the day, the only way to begin preparing our Nation to defend against this emerging threat is to allow the Senate to work its will in a full and unrestrained debate.

In June, Senator Warner and I urged the Senate's leadership to reach an agreement ensuring cyber security legislation receives an open debate on the Senate floor during the July work period. In calling for a fair amendment process, we in fact were simply repeating the cyber security debate commitment made by the majority leader at

the start of the year when he said that ``it is essential that we have a thorough and open debate on the Senate floor, including consideration of amendments to perfect the legislation, insert additional provisions where the majority of the Senate supports them, and remove provisions if such support does not exist.''

So I welcomed the majority leader's commitment to allow an open amendment process, and I joined my colleagues in voting to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill. As I have said repeatedly, only a bipartisan agreement will achieve our shared goal of passing cyber security legislation to prevent a devastating cyber attack.

That process must begin now, and as one who has served on the Select Committee on Intelligence for the last decade, I believe it is essential to begin by elucidating the nature of the indisputable threat we now face.

In June 2010, the Intelligence Committee's Cyber Security Task Force, on which I served along with Senators Whitehouse and Mikulski, delivered its classified final report illustrating the myriad of challenges to the security of our physical, economic, and social systems in cyber space. I urge my colleagues to review this classified report.

As for some examples we can discuss in an open forum such as this, I encourage my colleagues to read the National Counterintelligence Executive's unclassified report to Congress entitled ``Foreign Spies Stealing U.S. Economic Secrets in Cyberspace.'' The Counterintelligence Executive's report, which was released last fall, is truly the authoritative document when it comes to portraying in detail the nature of the threat and its ramifications on our lives and--increasingly--our livelihoods. s

The report is incredibly eye-opening and represents the first time in which our government has explicitly named China and Russia as the primary points of origin for much of the malicious cyber activity targeting U.S. interests. In fact, the report states that the Governments of China and Russia ``remain aggressive and capable collectors of sensitive U.S. economic information and technologies, particularly in cyberspace'' and it links much of the recent onslaught of computer network intrusions as originating from Internet Protocol addresses in these two countries.

For example, the Counterintelligence Executive's report cites a February 2011 study attributing an intrusion set called ``Night Dragon'' to an IP address located in China. According to the report, these cyber intruders were able to exfiltrate data from computer systems of global oil, energy, and petrochemical companies with the goal of obtaining information on ``sensitive competitive proprietary operations and on financing of oil and gas field bids.'' As the report notes, such activity on behalf of our economic rivals undermines the U.S. economy's ability to ``create jobs, generate revenues, foster innovation, and lay the economic foundation for prosperity and national security.'' And the report estimates that our losses from economic espionage range from ``$2 billion to $400 billion or more a year,'' reflecting the scarcity of data and underscoring how little we currently understand about the total effect these malicious cyber intrusions have on our economic future.

In addition to the threat posed to our Nation's prosperity, the Counterintelligence Executive's report noted that foreign collectors are stealing information ``on the full array of U.S. military technologies in use or under development,'' including marine systems, aerospace and aeronautics technologies used in intelligence gathering and kinetic operations, such as UAVs, and dual-use technologies used for generating energy.

In April, James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies testified in an unclassified Senate hearing that the delays and cost overruns in the F-35 program may be the result of cyber espionage, which in turn could be linked to the rapid development of China's J-20 stealth fighter. He went on to note that Iran has also been pursuing the acquisition of cyber attack capabilities, noting that FBI Director Mueller has testified that Iran appears increasingly willing to carry out such attacks against the United States and its allies.

As Director of National Intelligence James Clapper remarked during his unclassified testimony to the Select Committee on Intelligence in January, we are observing an ``increased breadth and sophistication of computer network operations by both state and nonstate actors'' and despite our best efforts ``cyber intruders continue to explore new means to circumvent defensive measures.'' To illustrate this point, Director Clapper cited the well-publicized intrusions into the NASDAQ networks and the breach of computer security firm RSA in March 2011, which led to the exfiltration of data on the algorithms used in its authentication system and, subsequently, access to the systems of a U.S. defense contractor.

Consequently, as Director Clapper put it, one of our greatest strategic challenges in the coming years will be ``providing timely, actionable warning of cyber threats and incidents, such as identifying past or present security breaches, definitively attributing them, and accurately distinguishing between cyber espionage intrusions and potentially disruptive cyber attacks.''

As I listened to Director Clapper's assessment of the cyber threat at the Intelligence Committee's annual unclassified worldwide threat hearing this past January, I was reminded of similar statements by several of his predecessors. In fact, on February 2, 2010, then DNI Dennis Blair provided the following cautionary warning:

This cyber domain is exponentially expanding our ability to

create and share knowledge, but it is also enabling those who

would steal, corrupt, harm or destroy the public and private

assets vital to our national interests. The recent intrusions

reported by Google are a stark reminder of the importance of

these cyber assets, and a wake-up call to those who have not

taken this problem seriously.

Similarly, the preceding year, on February 12, 2009, Director Blair said:

Over the past year, cyber exploitation activity has grown

more sophisticated, more targeted, and more serious. The

Intelligence Community expects these trends to continue in

the coming year.

As far back as February 5, 2008, then-DNI Michael McConnell warned:

It is no longer sufficient for the US Government to

discover cyber intrusions in its networks, clean up the

damage, and take legal or political steps to deter further

intrusions. We must take proactive measures to detect and

prevent intrusions from whatever source, as they happen, and

before they can do significant damage.

It was in response to this cavalcade of wake-up calls and threat briefings that Senator Rockefeller and I, in our role as crossover members of both the Intelligence and Commerce committees, initiated a series of hearings before the Commerce Committee to begin considering proposals for collaborating with the private sector to prevent and defend against attacks in cyber space.

On April 1, 2009, Senator Rockefeller and I introduced one of the first bills aimed at tackling some of our Nation's most vexing challenges when it comes to this issue. Our legislation, the Cybersecurity Act of 2010, was meant to focus the Senate's efforts on several key priorities, including conducting risk assessments to identify and evaluate cyber threats and vulnerabilities, clarifying the responsibilities of government and private sector stakeholders by creating a public-private information sharing clearinghouse, and investing in cyber research and development to expand activities in critical fields like secure coding, which is indispensable in minimizing our vulnerability to cyber intrusions. Our bill also sought to expand efforts to recruit the next generation of ``cyber warriors'' to implement these defenses through the creation of a cyber scholarship-for-service program.

Our cyber security bill was one of the first attempts to confront our vulnerabilities in cyber space, and with approximately 90 percent of the Nation's digital infrastructure controlled by private industry, we made a concerted effort to collaborate with businesses and ensure our bill incorporated input from experts covering the complete spectrum of this issue. Along the way Senator Rockefeller and I have worked together closely, holding meetings with the White House Cyber Security Coordinator, conducting hearings at the Commerce Committee with experts like James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies

and former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, and collaborating on a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled ``Now Is the Time to Prepare for Cyberwar.''

As a result, our legislation was marked up in a unanimous, bipartisan effort by the Commerce Committee in 2010. Moreover, our proposal received praise from a major telecommunications industry leader who said our 2009 bill ``puts the nation on a much stronger footing'' to confront the cyber threat and a leading telecom association, which said that ``passage of the Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity Act is a necessary and important step in protecting our national infrastructure.''

Additionally, in February 2011, following the Egyptian Government's attempt to quell public protests by denying access to the Internet, I pledged to oppose so-called ``Internet kill switch'' authority here in the United States. Consequently, I was pleased when earlier this year Senators on both sides of the aisle joined me in protecting critical first amendment rights by agreeing to reject any provisions that could be construed as giving our government new authority to restrict access to the Internet.

Thus, although I am not a cosponsor of the legislation before the Senate, I recognize that this proposal reflects many of the core ideas first offered by Senator Rockefeller and I in 2009, and I commend my colleagues for working with us over the last few years to ensure that these essential provisions were made part of the revised cyber security legislation.

Specifically, I support steps taken in the revised bill that require collaboration between the government and the private sector to share information about cyber threats and identify vulnerabilities to protect networks. Such information sharing and sector-by-sector cyber risk assessments were a fundamental part of the Rockefeller-Snowe bill in 2009. Likewise, I support provisions establishing an industry-led-- rather than government-led--process for identifying best practices, standards, and guidelines to effectively remediate or mitigate cyber risks, with civil liability protection for those owners and operators of critical infrastructure who have implemented these standards. And I support the cyber outreach, awareness, recruitment, and workforce development provisions that were an essential component of our original bill.

That being said, the private sector is rightly concerned about the prospect of over-regulation by the Federal Government. Specifically, many of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle have expressed concerns that passage of a comprehensive cyber security bill could lead to more government redtape, stifling innovation and impeding growth.

Yet I firmly believe these are not insurmountable challenges, and I am optimistic that there is tremendous potential for the Senate to forge a viable solution that incentivizes private sector participation and collaboration.

Although the revised bill takes steps to incentivize the adoption of voluntary cyber security practices, many continue to voice concerns when it comes to the provisions governing ``covered critical infrastructure,'' or in other words, those information systems for our transportation, first responders, airports, hospitals, electric utilities, water systems, and financial networks whose disruption would interrupt life-sustaining services, cause catastrophic economic damage, or severely degrade national security.

I support an effort to raise the bar when it comes to cyber security standards for our most critical, life-sustaining systems. Yet in order to pass a bill that has the momentum to become law, we absolutely must find some middle ground with those who have raised valid concerns about the potential of over-regulation by the Federal Government.

For example, I have heard concerns from the private sector that subsection 103(g) of the revised bill may cause confusion and has led many to believe that the voluntary rules will eventually be forced upon companies who may already have strong security practices in place. Specifically, this subsection mandates that all Federal agencies with responsibilities for regulating critical infrastructure must submit an annual report justifying why they have not acted to make the voluntary standards proposed through this legislation mandatory within their jurisdiction. To remove any confusion about the intent of the bill, I am working with Senator Warner and several of my colleagues on straightforward language to clarify that nothing in the bill should be construed to increase, decrease, or otherwise alter the existing authority of any Federal agency when it comes to the security of critical cyber infrastructure.

Likewise, I share some of my colleagues' concerns that provisions designed to bolster the Department of Homeland Security's role in managing efforts to secure and protect critical infrastructure networks could lead to an unsustainable DHS bureaucracy. Such provisions were not part of the original Rockefeller-Snowe bill, which took a different approach by creating a Senate-confirmed National Cybersecurity Adviser within the Executive Office of the President.

Yet, again, this hurdle is not insurmountable--and I welcome the establishment of the National Cybersecurity Council in the revised bill as an interagency body with members from the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Justice, the Intelligence Community, and other appropriate Federal agencies--in addition to DHS--to assess risks and ensure the primary regulators for each critical system are involved in any final decision.

Furthermore, I remain concerned that the bill lacks specific provisions to assist small businesses in complying with any new cyber security standards adopted by Federal agencies with responsibilities for regulating the security of critical infrastructure. Small businesses remain the primary job creators in this country, responsible for more than two-thirds of all new jobs created. As ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have advocated tirelessly for targeted regulatory reform because there is no doubt that regulations are stifling small business. Small firms with fewer than 20 employees bear a disproportionate burden of complying with Federal regulations. These small firms pay an annual regulatory cost of $10,585 per employee, which is 36 percent higher than the regulatory cost facing larger firms.

In response, I have proposed several amendments to ensure the Small Business Administration and other constructive stakeholders are involved in analyzing the implications of cyber security performance standards on small businesses and recommending options for mitigating any costs or unnecessary burdens. And I have filed an amendment that would identify the challenges that prevent the Federal Government from leveraging the capabilities of small businesses to perform classified cyber security work and to develop security-cleared cyber workers.

I have also filed amendments that ensure sector specific regulators have the technical resources and staffing to adequately address cyber threats facing their industry and that focus research efforts on promising technologies that will secure our wireless infrastructure. Additionally, I have joined my colleague, Senator Toomey, in offering an amendment that would implement a national data security breach standard to simplify compliance for businesses and notifications to consumers to reduce undue burden and confusion. More than 540 million records have been reported breached since 2005 according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and research from Symantec estimates the average organizational cost of a breach is approximately $5.5 million.

Finally, I have filed an amendment to prohibit our government from signing new trade agreements with countries that have been identified by the National Counterintelligence Executive as using cyber tools to steal our trade secrets and threaten our economic security. It is time to send the message that these malicious activities will come with a price, and I view this as a sound and practical means of deterrence.

So again let me reiterate the imperative fact that time is not on our side. As former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and several of his intelligence community and defense colleagues recently wrote in a letter to our Senate leadership, the

risk of failing to act on comprehensive cyber security legislation is ``simply too great considering the reality of our interconnected and interdependent world, and the impact that can result from the failure of even one part of the network across a wide range of physical, economic and social systems.''

Therefore, as I wrote in a letter to the majority and minority leaders in June, ``given the nature of the threat we face . . . it is essential that we not miss an opportunity to consider cyber security legislation in a non-partisan manner and pass a bill that has the momentum to become law.''

Now is the moment to prove that the Senate is capable of forging a viable solution to address what Director Clapper called ``a critical national and economic security concern.'' I welcome this debate on what I view as one of the defining national security challenges of our generation, and I urge my colleagues to join me in working for passage of comprehensive cyber security legislation.

Mr. President, first of all, I wish to say I appreciate the leadership for working to ensure a vote on this package. This package was slowed down not because anybody is truly opposed to what we are trying to do, but the package was slowed down because of the way we are paying for it. We are going to see that coming over from the House as well. It is not a Republican or a Democratic problem; it is a problem of all of us because there is going to be an emergency farm bill, a disaster bill, coming over that is going to spend almost $400 million, and it is paid for over 5 years. That has to stop. It has to stop.

Right now, in this country, every man, woman, and child is on the hook for $53,000 of debt. So the typical American family is on the hook for 212,000 bucks right now because of what we have done. So my objection was not with the AGOA package, it is not with Myanmar, it is not with any of that. Those are great policy things. My objection is we are addicted to not fulfilling our responsibilities and delaying.

So this is a very simple, straightforward message and amendment that does two things: One, it recognizes the recommendation of the Obama administration in terms of duplication and the need for consolidation. That is how we are eventually going to get out of the hole. We have $130 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and we have $16 trillion in debt. It was a good recommendation. We totally ignored it. We have ignored it. Nothing has happened on what they have recommended. There have been no hearings on what the Obama administration recommended in terms of combining some of the departments at OMB.

So this is just a step toward trying to meet in the middle with what the Obama administration has recommended and us actually paying the $200 million in costs over 2 years, with $200 million worth of savings in 2 years.

The bill, as it presently stands, takes 10 years to pay for $200 million. We have a $3.7 trillion budget--or CR--and we can't find--it is less than one-hundredth of 1 percent, and we can't find it. So what this does is delay the cost--the payment--for this bill over a period of years, all the way out to 2023. No family who is broke gets to operate that way--and we are. Nobody who has maxed out their credit cards gets to do that, and we have maxed them out. So what we are saying is there is a ton of money that is available that we can use.

We have had three amendments on this floor that everybody who is going to be in opposition to this have voted for to eliminate duplication. The vast majority of my colleagues on the other side have voted for it, and the vast majority of my colleagues on my side have voted for it. So we are going to use that same skill where we know there is waste and we know there is inefficiency. We have tons of GAO reports, tons of IG, and tons of oversight of the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate that shows where the duplication is. All we are asking is, let's pay for it. Let's pay for it.

This place is so manipulated, I couldn't get a score until yesterday because somebody was telling them don't give him a score. Then when we changed the amendment, all of a sudden, because we want to know what the amendment says, CBO says: Well, wait a minute. That might not work. The fact is CBO didn't read our amendment right, and they know they didn't. So OMB was consulted. They said this amendment is implementable, and it fits with what the President was recommending in terms of consolidation of programs.

So what it says is let's make this a start today. Let's actually start paying for things in the years in which we are going to spend the money, and let's not kick the can down the road. Let's not charge it to our kids because the history is we take 10 years to pay for something, we come back next year and we will change it. We will change it. So what was paid for this year all of a sudden is not paid for anymore, and it is smoke and mirrors for the American people.

So this is very straightforward. It is a clean pay-for. It uses two mechanisms to get there which have been scored that will accomplish it.

I fully support the AGOA. I am sorry we got delayed. I am actually sorry it took--because there has already been

some damage done, than had we passed it when it came here. That was never my intent, but we can right that today. What I agreed to is if I lose the amendment, fine. But to not try to pay for things, to not create a discipline to get back where we should be--we are going to do this. We may not do this today, but I promise my colleagues the international financial community, in a very short period of time, is going to make us do this. So let's start doing it on our own under our own terms rather than what some foreign bondholder or the Chinese want to do.

The other objection that might be there is, well, if we do this, it will have to go back to the House. That is right. This passed on suspension. There was very little opposition to it. It will go back modified; they will pass it. I have talked to the Speaker. They haven't passed the other one first because they are waiting on us to act. We will hold ours at the desk because it has a revenue problem; they will modify theirs; they will do exactly what we did. I would just appreciate us standing up to the real problems in front of us.

It is a great goal to want to help these areas. It is a great goal to put the sanctions back on Myanmar so that they can be adjusted and used to create freedom. Those are great goals. But there is a greater goal because none of those things are going to matter if our financial system, our way of life, crashes around us because we are not responsible here.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

I do. I thank the Chair.

Amendment No. 2771

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, it is intriguing to me. We heard the Senator from Delaware absolutely assure us that if we defy this, the House is not going to do the right thing. My conversation with Chairman Camp was different from that. I do not know what the timing was between our conversations. But it is never the right time in Washington to fix our problems.

We do a lot of great things. You want to talk about job creation? Job creation has decreased by 1 million jobs a year in this country simply because we continue to add to our debt. And this bill adds to our debt. It is not paid for. It has another trick in there that actually charges more in corporate taxes just to get around pay-go.

So the point is--and I will not have any more to say on this bill so we can go on and get to the other--the point is, if we stood and did the right thing and led this country by actually paying for something at the time, the House would change it--just for the very reasons the Senator from Delaware said. It is important. If we had a strong vote that said: Yes, it is important, but, by dingy, we are not going to keep doing the same thing that has been bankrupting this country--but now we use an excuse to say: Well, here is our reason why we cannot do what is right.

America should spit us out of their mouth. We never find the right time to actually have the fiscal discipline that will solve our county's problems and create a viable future for our children, let alone African children.

So that is a real choice today. I do not expect to win this because this place is not going to change until the people who are here decide that the future of our country is more important than anything else and we start acting like it. And we can do good things internationally, but we can do them the right way that will not put our children at risk. Our debt level is such that our GDP is decreased by 1 percent right now--it is proven--just because of the amount of debt we have.

So we are going to pass a bill with great intentions, with which I agree. It will have a great result; I agree with that. We can do both. We can actually do better. But it is because there is not the spine in the Senate to stand up and make the hard choice. This country is full of people outside of Washington who are used to making hard choices, and they are doing it in this tough economic time all the time. They are making hard choices. We lack the intestinal fortitude to do that. We should have them here and us home because they know how to get it done.

So what we are going to do is we are going to do the same thing we have always done. We are not going to make the hard choice. We are not going to do the best we can do. We are going to settle for second best because we have an excuse not to make the hard choice. The excuse right now is that the House will not move. Well, I will guarantee you, if it as important as Senator Coons and Senator Isakson say it is, and Representative Smith, and we sit here and say our position is that it is paid for within 2 years, I will bet you by tomorrow it will be paid for within 2 years. But we will not ever do that because we lack the courage to do the hard thing, the right thing. What has that gotten us? It has gotten us deeper in debt, a depressed economy, an anxious American citizenry that has no

confidence about the future, which is so self-fulfilling in terms of driving the economy down even further.

It is time for us to lead. This is a small issue, but if we cannot even pay for $200 million over 2 years, we do not deserve to be here, we do not deserve it, because what we are really doing--we are helping people in Africa, we are helping the freedom in Burma, but what we are really doing is taking just a little bit of freedom away from our kids. That is the real vote here. It is really not about money; it is about destroying the future prospects of this country because we refuse to make a hard choice.

There can be a lot of flowery speeches about it. We can say we are going to do something good. I will tell you that well-intentioned desires by the Members of this body are what has us $16 trillion in debt.

I will not spend any more time. I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Delaware. I know he believes in this cause. He is bigger than this. He can make this tough vote. He knows how big the problems are. If we are not going to do it now, when are we going to do it? If we are not going to do it on something small, when are we going to do it?

We are not going to do it, and that is what the American people get. That is why there is an uprising in this country to get back to the basics of the Constitution. That is why there are people who are interested--because we have mismanaged it because we will not do the hard part.

Mr. President, I yield back my time.

I will ask for the yeas and nays at the appropriate time.

Well, Mr. President, I want to again thank Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins for their willingness to negotiate seriously. I want to thank also Senator Chambliss as well as Senator Hutchison and many others, Senator Kyl and others.

We have had large meetings, small meetings, medium-sized meetings. We have had discussions among various groups. I believe we sort of had the outlines of a framework that we could have had a certain number of amendments that we all agreed to that would be voted on. At the same time, we could prevail upon some of our colleagues not to have nongermane amendments.

Unfortunately, the first amendment proposed by the majority leader has to do with tax cuts. Look, I say to my colleagues that I think we have developed a framework where we can move forward with a certain number of germane amendments. All of us appreciate how important this issue is.

I don't see the need for this vote. Cloture will not be invoked. All it will do is embed people in their previously held positions. What we should be

doing is continuing productive negotiations and discussions that we had all during yesterday, put off this cloture vote, and try to come to some agreement in recognition that cyber security is a vital national security issue. We all recognize that. We started out very much poles apart. I think there have been some agreements made which I view as significant progress.

I regret, I say to Senator Lieberman, Senator Collins, and all my colleagues, that we are taking this vote when we should be spending our time--at least the rest of the day--setting up a framework that we can address cyber security during the first week we are back in September. But it is what it is.

I thank Senators Lieberman and Collins for their willingness to sit down and negotiate. We still have significant differences, but I think those could have been resolved. I hope this vote doesn't have a chilling effect on what I think was progress that was being made.

On issues of transparency and information sharing and others, there are still differences, but they have been narrowed. Again, I thank my colleagues for their hard work.

Mr. President, I rise today to oppose cloture on the Cybersecurity Act of 2012.

Are any of us surprised that we find ourselves in this situation-- again? Is this the ``open amendment'' process we were all promised? As I said earlier this year, a bill as complex as cyber security legislation can only be achieved if it goes through the regular committee process. Had this bill been subjected to the proper committee process, instead of relying on Senate rule XIV, I believe we would have had a much stronger legislative product that would have attracted broader support. Instead, the blame game, which is the first sign of a stalled legislative process, is in full swing.

As of yesterday afternoon it was my understanding that we would continue to work throughout August to find a compromise on this legislation. As a backstop to prepare for the possibility that an agreement would not be reached during that time, we requested a tranche of 10 to 15 placeholder amendments be set aside to address a defined set of issue areas we had with the current bill. In exchange for these process concessions, our group was willing to support cloture.

The unfortunate reality is that we had time to conduct proper legislative hearings and hold committee markups. But rather than choose the customary process, which forces us to defend our points of view, build consensus around ideas and, admittedly, requires more planning and hard work, a less transparent approach was taken. That approach, while at the time may have seemed more legislatively convenient, resulted in hurried, last-minute negotiations that have been doomed from the outset. Rarely does anything good get accomplished under these circumstances, which lack transparency and scrutiny. This should serve as a warning to both sides of the aisle and future congresses that attempts to side-step the legislative process are risky, often unproductive, and do not bypass the criticism they seek to avoid.

And while all of us recognize the importance of cyber security, we should

not confuse opposition to this deeply flawed bill as a sign of somehow being unwilling to address the issue. It has been my experience that when dealing with matters of national security and domestic policy, and in this bill is at the nexus of both, it is more important to work to get something done right than just work to get something done. And while both efforts may result in enough material to create a headline, only one fulfills our purpose for being here in this body.

Time and again, we have heard from experts about the importance of maximizing our Nation's ability to effectively prevent and respond to cyber threats. We have all listened to these accounts. This cyber threat and the risk of an attack only increased when the Stuxnet leaks began recklessly coming out of this administration. And while this threat and others persist, the most important piece of legislation which the congress can pass when it comes to ensuring our national security, the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes cyber security elements, remains unfinished. This entire process feels more like a ploy to advance the fiction that we are focused on national security, while avoiding the fulfillment of one of the Congress's most important national security responsibilities--the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The point is that debating a controversial and flawed bill--a bill of such `significance' that it has languished for over 5 months at the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, with no committee markup or normal committee process--should not have taken precedence over a bill which was vetted over a period of 4 months by the Senate Armed Services Committee and reported to the floor with the unanimous support of all 26 members. Unfortunately, our current trajectory will likely leave us without a cyber security bill or the National Defense Authorization Act.

As I have said time and time again, the threat we face in the cyber domain is among the most significant and challenging threats of 21st- century warfare. But this bill unfortunately takes us in the wrong direction and establishes a new national security precedent which fails to recognize the gravity of the threats we face in cyber space. I agree that we must take appropriate steps to ensure that civil liberties are protected and believe we could have appropriately done so without removing the only institutions capable of protecting the United States from a cyber attack from counties like China, Russia, and Iran--from the front lines. Making these entities more reliant on their less capable civilian counterparts is an unacceptable, precedent setting approach, which fails to recognize the unique real-time requirements for understanding the threat environment, anticipating attacks, and responding when necessary.

Additionally, what is not being discussed enough are the likely implications of the new cyber security stovepipes being proposed in this bill. The recreation of the very walls and information sharing barriers that the 9/11 Commission attributed as being responsible for one of our greatest intelligence failures is very unwise.

In addition to the problems with the information sharing provisions, the critical infrastructure language grants too much authority to the government, failing to consider the innovative potential of the private sector. I continue to believe that this title would force those who own or operate critical assets to place more emphasis on compliance attorneys, rather than utilize the world-class engineering capabilities employed by our private sector. This is why the primary objective of our bill is to enter into a cooperative information sharing relationship with the private sector, rather than an adversarial relationship rooted in mandates used to dictate technological solutions to industry.

The SECURE IT Act is a serious response to the growing cyber threat facing our country, and it is an alternative approach to the overly bureaucratic and regulatory bill before us. Our amendment seeks to utilize the world-class engineers employed by our private sector, not compliance attorneys in law firms. This is why the primary objective of our bill is to enter into a cooperative information-sharing relationship with the private sector, rather than an adversarial relationship rooted in mandates used to dictate technological solutions to industry.

The centerpiece of the SECURE IT Act continues to be a legal framework to provide for voluntary information sharing. Our amendment provides specific authorities relating to the voluntary sharing of cyber threat information among private entities and the government, and in doing so, we do not create any new bureaucracy. This bill at the very least deserved a vote.

As I stated earlier, it has been my experience that when dealing with matters of national security and domestic policy, it is more important to work to get something done right than just work to get something done. For these reasons, and because of the closed process put forth by the majority, we should all oppose cloture.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak both in favor of the passage of the bill, S. 3326, and to speak against the Coburn amendment.

I, first, wish to thank Leaders Reid and McConnell, as well as Senators Baucus and Hatch, for working together diligently to find a path forward for passing this bill. I wish to recognize Senator Coburn and Senator Menendez for being willing to work with us to get to today.

I say with some regret that I stand to speak against the Coburn amendment because I respect and recognize Senator Coburn's determination to hold this body accountable and to find pathways forward to deal with our record deficit and debt. In that broader objective, I look forward to working with him on finding responsible pay-fors in future bills and in finding ways that we can steadily partner to reduce the deficit and to find and root out waste and abuse in Federal spending. But I have to say in this particular case, on this amendment, on this day, if we change the pay-for, we kill the bill.

We have heard clearly from the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Camp, and from his ranking minority member, Congressman Levin, that they will not take up this bill if amended in this form, if broken and reassembled, or if sent over in any other way. The pressure of today and the pressure of the value, the importance of this bill is what I choose to speak to. I may at some point reserve time to speak to other issues embedded in the amendment, but I first wanted to speak to the underlying bill.

I am the chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it is, in some ways, my special honor and challenge to help this body grasp why the African Growth and Opportunity Act is important for us to reauthorize today. Specifically what I am speaking to is the third-country fabric provision which expires in September. This Chamber is about to go out of session later today, and every day we delay in the reauthorization of this critical provision costs jobs, costs opportunity, and costs the future. Let me speak to that for a few minutes, if I might.

Creating American jobs and fueling our economic recovery is my top priority, and I know it is for many Members of this body. That is why I am here to talk about what we can do to strengthen our economic security. It may surprise my colleagues, but the truth is one of the best ways to look for that future opportunity is one that was considered among the least likely just a few years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Access to emerging markets is critical to America's health and growth, and increased political stability and rising wages in an emerging middle class across Africa makes it the most promising continent for countries willing to invest in long-term partnerships with the United States. In AGOA--the African Growth and Opportunity Act--and its third-country fabric provision, the United States has seized this opportunity to pursue broad and mutually beneficial economic relationships that give American consumers and businesses economic security by allowing eligible countries to export apparel from Africa that is more affordable to the American consumer and, in so doing, create jobs in Africa that otherwise would be elsewhere in the world.

This key provision, as I have said, expires in September. Our delay in moving forward with reauthorization that has earned strong bipartisan support is already disrupting production for American apparel companies along with the supply chain on which their customers depend. In my view, we cannot wait to take action. America can't afford to turn its back on African markets, and Congress can't afford to turn its back on extending this provision.

Every 3 years since 2000, Congress has unanimously passed the reauthorization of this provision without controversy, and it is, in my view, time to do so again.

I respect Senator Coburn's concern that we must change business as usual in this Chamber, but the timing of this amendment and the timing of this concern is, to me, not wise.

Today Secretary Clinton is in the middle of a continent-wide tour of African countries. She is engaging with

countries for strong emerging middle classes, and that offers us great opportunity: future economic partnership and very real political partnerships. From Ghana to Ethiopia to Tanzania to a half dozen other countries, some of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The seven countries that are the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa are home to 350 million potential consumers of our products. In my view, that is why I am urging my colleagues to vote against the Coburn amendment and to allow us to pass this critically important bill today. Failing to do so, in my view, is bad for Africa and for America.

Reauthorizing this provision supports the poorest African workers, the vast majority of them women. Senator Isakson, who is my capable and talented ranking minority member on the African Affairs Subcommittee, joined with Congressman Smith and Congresswoman Bass, who are our counterparts in the House, in hosting a meeting 3 months and 6 months ago with roughly 35 Ambassadors from all over the continent who pleaded with us to reauthorize this critical provision.

The economic benefits of a strong middle class in Africa are obvious--a pool of new consumers hungry for American products; potential partners for us. And countries with flourishing middle classes are more likely to have strong democratic institutions, good governance, and low corruption. They are more likely to be stable and bulwarks against instability in Africa, a region that I think is vital to our future.

In short, then, reauthorizing this provision and continuing our strong bipartisan support of tradition for AGOA is where the United States can continue to differentiate itself from competitors such as China, which recently surpassed the United States as Africa's No. 1 trading partner. The United States has exports to Sub-Saharan Africa that exceeded $21 billion last year, growing at a pace that exceeds our exports to the rest of the world.

Africans want to partner with us. They want to work with us, and they seek opportunity. This sort of bipartisanship that in the past has allowed this AGOA third country fabric provision to be reauthorized without controversy is one that I think we should embrace again today. So let's end the delays and reauthorize this provision.

Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes of my time, if I might, to the Senator from Georgia, who would like to speak to the issue of the value of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his remarks.

If I might just conclude my comments on this amendment by speaking in a little detail on the amendment and its substance.

The Senator from Oklahoma essentially directs the administration to find $192 million in reductions in spending in the following agencies: the Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Trade and Development Agency.

In my role as the chair of the African Affairs Subcommittee, we recently held a hearing on expanding U.S. trade opportunities in Africa for exactly the reasons I elucidated previously: that there is enormous growth, there are great opportunities across the continent. Our competitors from all over the world--not just China but Brazil, Russia, and other European countries--are expanding their investment and their seizure of these opportunities in a way that we are not.

The structure of this amendment would simply declare that there is $200 million of waste and duplication at several important trade agencies and direct the administration to slash their budgets for that amount and then hope for the best.

That is what Senator Coburn's proposed offset would do. These are agencies that promote and finance U.S. exports and help small and large U.S. businesses export and compete in a global market. In my view, exports, particularly to this market, mean jobs. So I am not convinced that now is the time to blindly slash our ability to export. I think we should instead be encouraging exports.

In the context of the Federal budget, $192 million is a very, very small amount of money. I look forward to working with Senator Coburn to find other places where we can find reductions of this size. But this amendment, at this time, on this day, would kill the broader and more important objective of reauthorizing the African Growth and Opportunity Act third-party fabric provision, of moving forward with relevant Burma sanctions, and of moving forward with an important technical fix to

Mr. President, nearly 3 years ago, I called the chairmen of the Senate's national security committees--Senators Lieberman, Rockefeller, Feinstein, Leahy, and Levin--together to discuss what, even then, was one of the most urgent priorities for our national security: defending our Nation against cyber attack.

I asked them to begin working together, across committee jurisdictions and across party lines, to develop comprehensive cyber security legislation to protect our Nation, our security, and our economy from this growing threat. Many of the Senators present had already begun work on their own legislation, but they committed that day to join their efforts in common cause.

Since that time, their committees have painstakingly worked to break down artificial jurisdictional boundaries and to resolve differences across party lines. They have also sought to include a remarkably wide array of stakeholders--including cybersecurity experts, the private sector, academia, the intelligence community, military leaders, law enforcement, think tanks, State and local governments, and many more-- in an open, transparent, and cooperative process.

The process has been nearly unprecedented in its scope, its thoroughness, and its transparency. Since the Senate began its work on cyber security legislation in 2009, committees have held more than 20 hearings across at least seven different committees specifically on cyber security and related legislation, and addressed critical questions relating to cyber security in dozens of additional hearings. They have held numerous briefings for Senators and staff on cyber security, including a simulated cyberattack exercise for all Senators conducted by senior administration officials. They have organized several other forums for Senators to examine cyber security issues, including cross-committee working groups designed to develop comprehensive legislation, as well as the Intelligence Committee's 2010 Cyber Security Task Force. They have considered nearly 20 separate cyber security bills and numerous cyber security-related amendments. And they have held markups of cyber security legislation in five separate committees, each of which occurred under each committee's rules for regular order.

The result has been legislation that addresses the equities of these diverse stakeholders as fairly and thoroughly as one could imagine, while preserving the authorities necessary to boost our Nation's cyber defenses.

As ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Collins has been heroic in her efforts to ensure the bipartisan nature of this process. Yet, despite her best efforts, Republicans have made it clear throughout the last 3 years that they were simply unwilling to participate.

They refused to participate in working groups designed to draft the legislation, despite the fact that these groups were established with Leader McConnell's full agreement. They refused to propose changes to draft legislation, or to participate in negotiations with bill sponsors. When, after 3 years of painstaking work and broad outreach the legislation came to the floor, my Republican colleagues refused to allow the Senate to consider a single amendment to improve the bill, despite my continuous pleading for their agreement on a list of amendments for consideration. And, as today's cloture vote has demonstrated, they have refused to allow us to continue to debate the legislation.

Why this obstinate refusal to participate? How can these Senators, who have received the same entreaties from our military and intelligence leaders about the urgency of this legislation, obstruct Senate action to confront one of the leading threats to our Nation? These questions are all the more perplexing when one considers what our national security leaders have said about the seriousness of the threat we face.

According to General Keith Alexander, Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, ``The cyber threat facing the Nation is real and demands immediate action. The time to act is now; we simply cannot avoid further delay.''

General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted, ``The uncomfortable reality of our world today is that bits and bytes can be as threatening as bullets and bombs. Not only will military systems be targeted by tools that can cause physical destruction, but adversaries will increasingly attempt to hold our Nation's core critical infrastructure at risk.''

Similarly, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated, ``We talk about nuclear. We talk about conventional warfare. We don't spend enough time talking about the threat of cyberwar. There's a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyberattack.''

And Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called cyberattack ``A profound threat to this country, to its future, its economy and its very being.''

Simply put, there is unanimity across the national security community that malicious cyber activity is an urgent, growing, and imminently dangerous threat that our Nation must confront immediately. But this unanimity is not limited to the current administration. Countless national security officials appointed under Republican administrations--including former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Michael Hayden, and many others--have echoed the urgency of our current administration's call for action, as well as their support for the legislation we have considered today.

Yet, today Republicans were nearly unanimous in their opposition to this legislation. Why?

It is no secret that Republicans are taking their marching orders from the Chamber of Commerce. And the Chamber has made no secret that it is opposed to any effort to secure America's cyber networks; in fact, it has gone so far as to oppose even voluntary cybersecurity standards. In other words, the position of the Chamber of Commerce is that the owners and operators of the most critical infrastructure of our Nation--the electricity grid, telecommunications lines, air traffic control systems, and the like--should not even be asked to take steps, on a strictly voluntary basis, to improve our Nation's security. That position is hard to believe, and it is seriously out of step with the patriotism of the owners and employees of the American businesses it claims to represent.

As a result, my Republican colleagues have ignored the urgent calls of some of America's most respected national security leaders in order to pander to the Chamber of Commerce--an organization that appears more concerned with corporate bottom lines than with the American lives this legislation seeks to defend.

It seems that the only people who have not yet awakened to the threat facing our Nation are Senate Republicans. What has become clear in this debate is that Republicans are willing to prioritize partisan politics and slavish defense of corporate interests over our Nation's security. And that is simply unacceptable.

I hope that my colleagues across the aisle will wake up and recognize the threat facing our country before it is too late--before the ``cyber 9/11'' of which leaders like Secretary Panetta have warned us arrives. I hope that they can join us, as we have asked them to do for the last 3 years, and work on a bipartisan basis for the good of our country. And if they choose to do so, we will be ready to work quickly to pass this much-needed legislation.

But the more they delay, the more the risk to our Nation's security and economy grows. Time is running short.