A bill to amend title XVI of the Social Security Act to clarify that the value of certain funeral and burial arrangements are not to be considered available resources under the supplemental security income program.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Information, and Technology Act of 2012, otherwise known as the SECURE IT Act. This bill provides a strong foundation for Congress to enact what I hope can be a truly bipartisan approach for improving the ability of all Americans to protect themselves against the ever- increasing cybersecurity threat.

This bill was dropped today under the leadership of Senator McCain, Senator Hutchison, Senator Grassley, Senator Murkowski, and myself, and I am very pleased to be a part of that group who has worked very hard on this bill for a number of months.

There are a few who dispute the significance of the problem posed by the threat of cyber attacks. The financial harm inflicted by these attacks is now costing Americans billions of dollars each year. Denial- of-service attacks have been shutting down the Internet presence of business and organizations for years. Beyond the economic costs, malicious cyber activity is damaging our national security. Every day, cyber criminals and foreign adversaries steal large amounts of sensitive information from the networks of government and private sector entities. These trends need to be reversed before these malicious activities are measured in terms of lives lost rather than in terms of dollars as we are seeing today.

For years the Senate Intelligence Committee has been following the growing cybersecurity threats. Early on, one of the most common questions asked in the cybersecurity context was, Who is in charge? While this seems like the natural place to start, it is important to understand why this is really not the right question.

First, there is no consensus on who should be in charge. Some have argued it should be the Department of Defense. Some say it should be the Department of Homeland Security. Others think it might be best to start from scratch. All of these options have very obvious drawbacks.

Second, and more important, we have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope in trying to answer this question. Rather than trying to find a governmental entity that should be in charge of cybersecurity, it turns out that the answer is actually much simpler: each and every one of us is in charge of our own cybersecurity. I know some people will scoff at this answer because it is too simplistic for such a complicated problem or they just don't trust us to act in our own best interests. I think they are wrong on both counts.

So, if we--and by ``we,'' I mean all of us who use and rely on computer networks, whether individuals, groups, organizations, corporations, or government agencies--are in charge of our own cybersecurity, the real question then is, What should be done to reduce the threat of malicious cyber activity? I believe the answer to that question is contained in the bill called the SECURE IT Act that we have filed today.

The SECURE IT Act consists of four key areas of common ground identified in various legislative efforts: first, information sharing; second, Federal Information Security Management Act reform; third, enhanced criminal penalties; and fourth, cybersecurity research and development.

We have seen firsthand the positive impact better information sharing can have on our national security. Since the 9/11 terrorist attack, improved information sharing throughout the government and especially within the intelligence community has greatly enhanced our national security. I believe a similar improvement to information sharing in the cyber context will pay huge, long-term dividends in terms of our safety and national security.

Once there is an understanding that information sharing will work best if it empowers the individual rather than a discrete government entity, the move from a regulatory approach to one that encourages voluntary sharing of cyber threat information by removing unintended barriers quickly follows. The information-sharing title of the SECURE IT Act is based on this voluntary approach and on the principle that government cannot and should not solve every problem.

The cosponsors of this bill relied upon a number of principles and practical considerations to develop the information-sharing provisions in this bill.

First, private sector innovation is the engine that drives our economy. Private sector entities have a vested interest in protecting their assets, businesses, and investments. What they often lack is information to help them better protect themselves. Therefore, our information-sharing provision authorizes private sector entities and non-Federal Government agencies to voluntarily disclose cyber threat information to government and private sector entities. The only time cyber threat information must be shared with the government is when it is directly related to a contract between a communications service provider and the government, which ordinarily is a term included in that contract anyway. The only new requirement is that such information will ultimately need to be shared with a cybersecurity center.

Information sharing is and must be a two-way street, but there are no quid pro quos here. Because the government often sees different threat pictures than the private sector, our bill also encourages the government to immediately share more classified, declassified, and unclassified cyber threat information. As one example, consider how improved information sharing might safeguard transportation industry systems. Suppose a commercial airline company detects a virus in their reservation system. The virus is stealing information, including customers' credit card numbers, and sending it to a hacker's server overseas. The airline, after investigating internally, determines where the stolen data is being sent. Under our bill, the airline may share the Internet address that is receiving the stolen credit card information with any other companies, such as other airlines, as well as with the government. With this warning from the first airline, other transportation companies can check their systems to see if any of their data is being sent to the hacker's server. Moreover, using the hacker's Internet address, law enforcement is able to begin an investigation to identify other victims of the same hacker.

The cybersecurity centers will also be able to notify private entities of the nature of this particular threat. In this example, it is unlikely that the airline will ever need to share or release any customer's personally identifiable information.

Second, my cosponsors and I intentionally omitted a critical infrastructure title because we believe a top-down regulatory approach will stifle the voluntary sharing of cyber threat information by the private sector. Consistent with this principle, our information-sharing title does not provide any additional authority to any government entity to impose new regulations on the private sector. In fact, the bill prohibits government agencies from using any shared cyber threat information to regulate the lawful activities of an entity. In short, the bill leaves the existing regulatory regime unchanged.

The real difficulty with trying to regulate in this area is that malicious cyber activities occur in real time and are constantly changing. The bureaucracy-driven regulatory process is simply not nimble enough to keep up with the leading cybersecurity practices. Another disadvantage to a regulatory approach is that it gives hackers insight into existing cybersecurity performance requirements and, as a result, potential vulnerabilities. As industry representatives have told us, this could actually make us less safe, not more safe.

Thirdly, our bill does not create any new bureaucracy to facilitate the sharing of cyber threat information. Rather, it relies upon the existing cybersecurity centers and gives private entities the flexibility to share their cyber threat information with any cyber center. To ensure thorough dissemination within the government, each cybersecurity center is required to pass on to other centers any cyber threat information it receives from an entity. Ultimately, we expect that our current decentralized cybersecurity center structure will be energized by an increase in shared cyber threat information. We also think these centers, with their ongoing relationships with many private entities, provide a more robust and secure environment for information sharing than creating new cybersecurity exchanges or a new national center.

Another advantage of our ``no new regulatory authorities'' and ``no new bureaucracy'' approach is it is also a ``no new spending'' approach. Our bill does not authorize any new spending, which is particularly important given our current economic situation.

Fourth, our bill contains clear and unconditional protection from civil and criminal liability for entities that rely upon the authorities in the information-sharing title. Specifically, a private entity cannot be sued or prosecuted for using lawful countermeasures and cybersecurity systems to defend its networks and identify threats. In addition, neither a private entity nor a Federal Government entity can be sued or prosecuted for using, disclosing, or receiving cyber threat information or for the subsequent action or inaction by an entity to which they gave cyber threat information.

These clear liability protections are necessary to encourage robust information sharing. If they are watered down or made conditional on sharing with the government, private sector lawyers will likely discourage their clients from sharing cyber threat information and, at a minimum, sharing will be delayed while lawyers have to be consulted.

The final practical consideration that governed the drafting of our information-sharing title was to provide sensible safeguards for the protection of personal privacy. We accomplished this in a number of ways.

This information-sharing title is focused on the sharing of only ``cyber threat information.'' It is a key definition in the bill. If you study it carefully, you will see it is limited primarily to information related to malicious cyber activities. There is no authorization or liability protection for using, sharing, or receiving information that falls outside of this definition. Nor can private entities use their cybersecurity systems to get information that falls outside this definition. Moreover, it helps to remember that people engaged in malicious cyber activities are essentially trespassers who have no standing to assert privacy interests.

Besides this relatively narrow definition of ``cyber threat information,'' there is an additional privacy mechanism that limits the collection and disclosure of cyber threat information for the purpose of preventing, investigating, or mitigating threats to information security. In other words, if what you are doing is not for these purposes, then you cannot do it under this bill.

Another way this bill protects privacy is by requiring the government to handle all cyber threat information in a reasonable manner that considers the need to protect privacy and allows the use of anonymizing information.

Since information sharing is voluntary under our bill, private sector entities can take any steps to protect their own privacy interests and the privacy of their customers. Moreover, our bill allows private sector entities to require the recipients of their cyber threat information to seek their consent before further disseminating the information.

Finally, Congress will be able to conduct its oversight since our bill requires an implementation report to Congress within 1 year of enactment, with follow-on reports every 2 years thereafter. These reports will give Congress detailed insight into a number of areas, including the degree to which privacy may be impacted by the provisions in this title.

Now that I have identified the key components and advantages of our approach to information sharing, let me explain why we were compelled to draft this separate bill.

All of the cosponsors of the SECURE IT Act agree with Senators Lieberman and Collins and the White House that Congress needs to address the cybersecurity threat. When we attempted to participate in the cyber working groups, it became clear pretty early on that it was going to be difficult to come up with a consensus product.

My experience with working on bipartisan bills such as the Intelligence Authorization Act is that we generally start from scratch and only put in those provisions that are agreed to by both sides. If a provision receives an objection, it is not included, but it is understood it may be an amendment during markup or on the floor. This approach always gives us a great starting point that enjoys the overwhelming support of both sides.

Since the working group process had essentially reached an impasse on the issue of critical infrastructure regulation and how best to promote information sharing, the cosponsors of the SECURE IT Act joined together to develop a bill that would cover ``common ground'' and could serve as a better starting point for negotiations. We have listened to all sides in putting this bill together--government, industry, private groups, cybersecurity experts, and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both the Senate and the House. There should be nothing surprising in our bill. Our ranking member group has been telegraphing our priorities for months now.

If we are serious about passing cybersecurity legislation in this Congress--and I hope we are--we should be working together to pass a bill with the support of a large group of Senators far in excess of the 60 we need, as we have done in the past on many major pieces of legislation. I believe the ``common ground'' approach of the SECURE IT Act puts us on a clear path to reaching this goal.

This is important national security legislation. Fortunately, Leaders Reid and McConnell have an outstanding record of garnering overwhelming bipartisan support for national security legislation, and I am confident they will seek to do so again. I look forward to continuing these discussions and getting a strong bipartisan bill signed into law.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak about cybersecurity legislation--legislation we hope will soon be before the Senate.

There is no question--no question at all--that this is a critical issue that should be addressed by this Congress, and I am certain that every Member of this body is concerned that our Nation may be vulnerable to cyber-attacks that could truly have very severe economic and security ramifications. We see stories about cyber-attacks daily-- whether they are attacks on individuals, on companies, on government-- and I believe it is time for us to take steps to protect ourselves against this emerging threat.

In the coming weeks, the Senate is expected to take up legislation to address this very real problem, and I am hopeful this effort will result in legislation we can all agree is worthy of sending to the President. But right now it appears we are on track to follow an all- or-nothing approach. The problem I see with the bill that is expected to come to the floor--featuring text that was recently released by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee--is that it has not gone through regular order and, I fear, amounts to regulatory overreach. If that is our only option here, it will ultimately prevent us from making progress on cybersecurity here in Congress, which I think would be an unfortunate outcome.

Because that outcome is unacceptable, I have introduced an alternative bill this morning, along with a number of ranking member colleagues. I know Senator Chambliss from Georgia was here on the floor earlier, and many of us spoke to it earlier in the day. We call our bill the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information, and Technology Act of 2012. It has an acronym, of course. It is called SECURE IT for short. The bill follows a commonsense approach to address our ever-increasing cyber threats.

Our bill focuses on four different areas we believe can draw bipartisan

support and result in good public law. Those four areas are: information sharing, FISMA reform--which is intelligence-sharing reform--criminal penalties, as well as additional research.

What the SECURE IT bill does not do is equally important, because it does not simply add new layers of bureaucracy and regulation that will serve little purpose and achieve meager results. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee bill would arm the Department of Homeland Security with expansive new authorities to review all sectors of our economy and designate what is termed ``covered critical infrastructure'' for further regulation. What we hear out there from industry is that this amounts to regulation almost for regulation's sake. In the electricity industry's case, this is resulting in duplicative regulation that I am afraid will lead to a ``compliance first'' mentality. Companies will focus on meeting their new Federal requirements and passing a seemingly endless stream of audits, but these heavyhanded statistic requirements from yet one more Federal regulator will not necessarily address the very real threats we face. So again, the concern is we will have industry focused on how do we comply, how do we avoid a bad audit, instead of using their ingenuity and their resources to ensure we stay ahead of any future cyber-attack. We need to be more nimble. We have to have a more nimble approach to dealing with cyber-related threats that are constantly growing and constantly changing. The threat we see today is not necessarily the threat we might anticipate tomorrow, so we have to stay ahead of the game. This is important, and this is where our SECURE IT bill comes in. I think we have simply taken a more pragmatic approach by focusing on the areas where we know we can find some bipartisan support.

One area I think we can all agree on is that the Federal Government needs to form a partnership with the private sector. We share the same goals, that is clear. The goals are to keep our computer systems and our Nation safe from cyber intrusions. We need the private companies to be talking with each other and with the government about the cyber problems they face as well as the potential strategies and the solutions to combat them. To achieve this goal, our legislation encourages the voluntary sharing of much needed information by removing legal barriers to its use and its disclosure. At the same time, we are very careful to safeguard the privacy and prohibit information from being used for competitive advantage.

Our bill also provides necessary updates to the Federal Information Security Management Act. This is the FISMA I spoke to a minute ago. These FISMA reforms require real-time monitoring of Federal systems. It will modernize the way the government manages and mitigates its own cyber risks. And unlike other legislation on this subject, the cyber bill we have introduced today will update criminal statutes to account for cyber activities. Finally, we support advanced cybersecurity research by leveraging existing resources without necessarily spending new Federal dollars. That is very important for us.

This straightforward approach to cybersecurity, I think, can go a long way in tackling the problem. Clearly, our own government agencies here need to be communicating a little bit better with one another. An example of this is that the White House and Department of Homeland Security are staging an exercise next week. All Members have been invited to attend and go through this exercise. It is a mock scenario that will feature a cyber-attack on the Nation's grid. And while I absolutely think this is a useful exercise, and something that is well worthwhile, I do find it quite surprising--quite surprising--that DHS would set up a grid attack scenario and fail to include the grid's primary regulators. These would be the electric reliability organization--what we call NERC--and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. These are the two regulatory agencies currently in place that provide for that cyber regulation. It is mandated within our grid that these agencies tend to just this issue. So it does make me question if DHS is even aware the electric industry is the only industry already subject to mandatory cyber standards, or that the NERC has the ability to issue time-sensitive alerts to electric utilities in the event of emergency situations. It is kind of hard for me to understand why DHS would proceed with a grid attack simulation and not include the existing governmental entities that already have these safeguards in place. It also begs the question as to whether Congress should provide DHS with such significant and expansive new authorities in the cyber arena.

Before I close, I wish to take a moment to talk about the process behind cybersecurity legislation. While my colleagues and I have highlighted the substantive and procedural problems that are associated with the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee bill, the majority, and even the press, have attempted to dismiss our arguments as nothing more than partisan stall tactics.

I stand before you to tell you that is simply not true. I want to take action on cyber. I know all of the ranking members who have joined together on this issue want to take action on cyber. We need to do it. I have been calling for action and for legislation since last Congress. We have been working on it in the Energy Committee and have moved out that cyber energy piece. But I do think it is important around this body that there is some meaning to the process; that process really does matter. That is how strong, bipartisan pieces of legislation are enacted. When we forego that process and refuse to do the hard work in the committee--and it is hard. But if we don't do that, we put ourselves on a path to failure with that legislation.

So when we have seven ranking members taking issue with how a bill has been put together, I think we had better pay attention. I think we need to look at whether our process is working.

The SECURE IT bill we introduced today is a strong starting point for us. Some may argue we need to go a little further. But additional layers of bureaucracy and regulations are not the answer at this time. Legislating in the four areas we have highlights--in the information sharing, the FISMA reform, criminal penalties, and research--these are necessary first steps that will make a tremendous amount of difference. If we need to do more in the future, we in Congress can certainly make that determination. But let's not take an all-or-nothing approach to cyber legislation and ultimately end up empty-handed.

I ask my colleagues to take a look at what we have presented today and consider supporting the SECURE IT Act so we can continue to ensure our citizens, our companies, and our country are protected.

Mr. President, let me take a few minutes to describe this legislation for my colleagues and, hopefully, urge them to seriously consider the legislation. It is introduced by me with several cosponsors: Senator Wyden, Senator Sanders, Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, Senator Franken, Senator Coons, Senator Kerry, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Tom Udall from my home State of New Mexico. All of those individuals strongly support what we are trying to do in this legislation.

I particularly want to thank the staff of the Senate Energy Committee for the hard work they put into developing this proposal, and particularly Kevin Rennert, who worked very hard on this proposal and got a lot of very useful input from many sectors and many individuals.

This is a simple plan to modernize the power sector and guide it toward a future in which more and more of our electricity is generated with cleaner and cleaner energy. The purpose of the legislation is to make sure that, as we continue to grow and power our economy, we leverage the clean resources we have available today and also provide a continuing incentive to develop the cheaper, cleaner technologies that will be needed in the future.

We want to make sure we drive continued diversity in our energy sources and allow every region of the country to deploy clean energy using the appropriate resources for that region. We want to make sure we do all of this in a way that supports homegrown innovation and manufacturing and that keeps us competitive in the global clean energy economy. The plan we are putting forward with this legislation would implement a clean energy standard, or CES for short.

Let me describe how it works. Starting in 2015, the largest utilities in the country would meet the clean energy standard by showing that a certain percentage of the electricity they sell is produced from clean energy sources. The initial percentage for 2015 is within the capabilities of those utilities today, and each year after 2015 they would be required to sell a little bit more of their electricity from clean sources. They can do so either by making incremental adjustments to their own energy mix to become cleaner and more efficient or by purchasing clean energy from those who provide it at the lowest cost or by purchasing credits on an open and transparent market.

To be considered clean, a generator must either be a zero carbon source of energy, such as, renewables and nuclear power, or a generator must have a lower carbon intensity than a modern, efficient coal plant. By carbon intensity, I mean the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per megawatt hour of electricity generated. Generators with low or no carbon intensity receive credits based on that criterion.

For example, renewables will receive a full credit per megawatt hour. Most natural gas generators would qualify for something around a half credit, and the more efficient natural gas generators would be incentivized compared to less efficient generators. A coal powerplant would receive some credits if it lowered its carbon intensity by installing carbon-capture technologies, by co-firing with renewable biomass.

Accounting for clean in this way means the cleanest resources have the greatest incentive. Also, it means every generator has a continuing incentive to become even more efficient. As the standard increases over time, the generation fleet will transition naturally toward cleaner and cleaner sources to meet it. The clean energy standard sets an overall goal for clean energy, but the optimal and the cheapest set of technologies to use will be determined by the free market. The rate of transition is predictable and it is achievable and the rules of the road are transparent and they are clear.

In addition to driving cleaner electricity generation in the power sector, the clean energy standard also rewards industrial efficiency. Combined heat and power units generate electricity while also capturing and using the heat for other purposes, and these units are treated as clean generators under this proposal for the clean energy standard. This will help to deploy this kind of efficiency throughout our country and will provide another source of inexpensive clean energy.

Let me also describe what this proposal does not do. The clean energy standard does not put a limit on overall emissions. It does not limit the growth of electricity generation to meet the demands of a growing economy. All that the clean energy standard requires is that the generation we do use in future years and that we add to our fleet gradually becomes cleaner over time.

The clean energy standard does not cost the government anything, and it does not raise money for the government to use either. If any money does come to the Treasury as a result of the program because of refusal to participate or to comply, that money would go directly back to the particular State from which it came to fund energy-efficiency programs.

Finally, the clean energy standard will not hurt the economy. This past fall I asked the Energy Information Administration to analyze a number of clean energy standard policy options. The results of their study showed a properly designed clean energy standard would have almost zero impact on gross domestic product growth and little or no impact on nationally averaged electricity rates for the first decade of the program. The Energy Information Administration analysis did show that a clean energy standard would result in a substantial deployment of new clean energy and carbon reductions between 20 percent and 40 percent in the power sector by 2035, which is the timeframe provided for in the proposal.

I have asked the Energy Information Administration to update their modeling to reflect this final proposal that we are introducing today, and when they have completed that analysis in the next few weeks I plan to hold hearings on the proposal to further explore the benefits and effects of the clean energy standard in the Energy Committee.

The goal of the clean energy standard is ambitious. It is a doubling of clean energy production in this country by 2035. But analysis has shown that the goal is achievable and affordable. Meeting the clean energy standard will yield substantial benefits to our health and to our economy and to our global competitiveness, and, of course, to our environment.

The bill we are introducing today is simple. It sets a national goal for clean energy. It establishes a transparent framework that lets resources compete to achieve that goal based on how clean they are, and then it gets out of the way and lets the market and American ingenuity determine the best path forward.

I think this is a very well thought out proposal and one that deserves the

attention of all colleagues. I hope they will look at it seriously, and I hope we can attract additional supporters and cosponsors as the weeks proceed in the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to introduce the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information and Technology Act, also known as the SECURE IT Act. I am joined today by Senator Hutchison, Senator Chambliss, Senator Grassley, Senator Murkowski, Senator Coats, Senator Burr, and Senator Johnson of Wisconsin. My colleagues and I believe that passage of this act would be a significant step towards improving our Nation's cyber defenses.

It is clear to most policy makers that the Internet has transformed nearly all aspects of our lives by breaking down barriers and increasing information efficiencies. Whether you are a student searching for an article to complete a homework assignment or a fireman trying to remotely determine the landscape of a forest to safely extinguish a fire, the Internet has improved our lives because it has so greatly transformed how and when we are able to access information.

While progress is clear, not a week goes by without fresh media reports of a major compromise of a cyber network in the United States. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office stated that cyber attacks against the United States are up 650 percent over the last 5 years, and according to one leading cybersecurity firm, the annual cost of cyber crime itself is nearly $388 billion. That cost is close to the sum of all of the profits of the top 75 Fortune 500 firms for 2011. My friends, if the top 75 American businesses lost all of their profits in one year, we would be working night and day to solve the problem.

Most of us don't need an analogy like that to appreciate the need to improve the current state of cybersecurity in this country. But the reality is that advancing much needed legislation has been extremely difficult. I will be the first to admit there are honest differences within the cybersecurity debate. However, over the course of the last few years, several cybersecurity solutions have been brought forth that I believe can be advanced and offer insight as to where progress can be achieved. These solutions are not insignificant and their passage would do plenty to improve our country's cybersecurity defenses. I believe that inaction is no longer an option. The stakes are too high and the threat is too real.

The SECURE IT Act is a serious response to the growing cyber threat facing our country. Our bill seeks to utilize the world-class engineers employed by our private sector, not compliance attorneys in billable by the hour law firms. This is why a primary objective of our bill is to enter into a cooperative information sharing relationship with the private sector, rather than an adversarial one rooted in prescriptive Federal regulations used to dictate technological solutions to industry.

The centerpiece of the SECURE IT Act is a legal framework to provide for voluntary information sharing. Our bill provides specific authorities relating to the voluntary sharing of cyber threat information among private entities, between a private entity and a non- federal government agency such as a local government, and between any entity and a pre-existing Federal cybersecurity center. In setting forth our information sharing framework, we do not create any new bureaucracy.

Further, the SECURE IT Act includes no government monitoring, no government take-overs of the Internet, and no government intrusions. There are plenty of laws that deal with those issues--this bill is not one of them. The goal of the information sharing title is to remove the legal hurdles which prevent critical information from being shared with those who need it most.

In drafting the information sharing title of our bill, my colleagues and I were very sensitive to the issue of privacy and we worked very hard to put forth understandable privacy protections. First, we limit the type of information involved in information sharing

to ``cyber threat information'' as it is narrowly defined in the bill. There are no legal protections for entities using, receiving, or sharing information that falls outside that narrow ``cyber threat information'' definition. Second, we include techniques like information anonymizing and specifically state that entities can restrict the further dissemination of shared information. Additionally, after the first year, and then every other year, we will receive reports from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board which will tell us how these authorities are being implemented. We take the issue of privacy very seriously.

In addition to information sharing, the SECURE IT Act requires the Federal Government to improve its own cybersecurity by reforming the Federal Information Security Management Act--the law that governs federal networks. These updates are meant to ensure that the Federal Government transitions from paper-based reporting on network security to real-time monitoring--a huge step in federal cybersecurity which will go a long way to improve how the government addresses its own cyber threats. This transition from a checklist approach to continuous monitoring will not happen without an associated cost. However, we believe our approach to this necessary improvement is the most fiscally responsible because we require agencies to meet these requirements by using existing budgets, rather than by authorizing new federal spending.

We are all aware that federal government also plays a critical role in cybersecurity research. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy laboratories and the National Science Foundation are all world-class leaders in research that is essential to understanding how to best protect our cyber country's infrastructure. This work serves an important purpose and should be a Federal priority even in a time of significant budget constraints. However, the significance of these programs does not provide us with an excuse to authorize new spending or establish new programs. The SECURE IT Act ignores this temptation and does not authorize new spending or programs.

Finally, our cybersecurity bill updates our nation's criminal laws to account for new cyber crimes and assists the Department of Justice to prosecute cyber criminals.

In sum, it is our belief that the provisions included in the SECURE IT Act will dramatically improve cybersecurity in this country. More importantly, the approach taken in the SECURE IT Act has a real chance of being enacted into law this year. This is real progress that will impact nearly all Americans. After all, we are all in this fight together, and as we search for solutions, our first goal should be to move forward together.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a bill that was introduced this morning. The bill is the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information, and Technology Act, which we refer to as the SECURE IT Act.

This is a very important piece of legislation because we know that cyber attacks are a threat to our country and we need to strengthen our laws to ensure we are protecting our assets, our communication systems, and all of the infrastructure that is run by communications systems.

We are working as a group. Senators McCain, Chambliss, Grassley, Murkowski, Coats, Burr, and Johnson are original cosponsors. All of us are the ranking members on the relevant committees that must deal with cybersecurity.

Senator McCain, the lead sponsor, is, of course, the Armed Services ranking member. I am the ranking member of Commerce, Senator Chambliss of Intelligence, Senator Grassley certainly of Judiciary, and Senator Murkowski of Energy.

It is very important that our relevant committees have come together with our ranking members, and we hope very much to gain support from the Democratic side as well on a bill that we think can get through all of Congress and be signed by the President because the parts of our bill that will strengthen our cybersecurity in this country are, I think, accepted by those who have expertise in this area. For instance, our bill will help prevent the spread of cyber attacks from network to network and across the Internet by removing barriers to sharing information about threats, attacks, and strategies for improvement of defenses. We remove these barriers through addressing the antitrust laws that would allow companies that are sharing information not to be threatened with antitrust suits, because this is a security issue, it is not a competitive issue. Secondly, we want to have liability protection for those who disclose cyber threat information with their peers.

These are things that would be in everyone's interest for us to do, and we do need to address them in legislation. The liability and antitrust protections are available to all companies that would share information, not just those that share with the government but when they can talk to each other, to understand each other's systems.

Further, the SECURE IT Act would require that Federal contractors providing electronic communication or cybersecurity services to Federal agencies share cyber threat information related to those contracts. Of course, when they have contracts with the government, that information is going to be very important so we would require the sharing of information about threats that might jeopardize the system's security.

In addition, the government will develop procedures for the timely sharing of classified, declassified, and unclassified information to ensure that information needed to secure networks is fully accessible to trusted parties.

We are concerned that there are other bills out there that will add another new bureaucracy, another layer of regulation that is not necessary and brings in another agency that would overlay the security agencies that already have systems in place. It would also allow the regulatory bodies for certain areas of interest to handle the cybersecurity rather than another overlay of a new department.

I think so many people in our country who are in business feel they are overwhelmed with duplicative regulations and different agencies they have to report to. We want to streamline whom they have to report to and try to use existing structures and existing regulatory authorities to deal with each individual company or industry so that we don't have to give them yet another new bureaucracy that would then have regulations, if they are deemed to be critical infrastructure. That is when it becomes the regulatory threat.

We believe the private sector is more aware of individual security needs and better equipped than the Department of Homeland Security to secure its own networks, working with its own regulators. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the government itself has had great difficulty in preventing attacks on Federal systems. So we do require that the reporting of Federal contractors go to the Federal security agencies, but we don't think the Federal agencies being in charge of everything is necessarily an improvement.

We want to make sure the Federal Information Security Management Act, which is the law, is actually updated so that the new forms of cyber threats are accommodated in FISMA, the Federal Information Security Management Act, and to strengthen that with the updates.

The legislation also updates the Criminal Code to address cyber crimes, strengthening penalties, improving the Department of Justice's ability to prosecute this kind of criminal who would take down whole systems of our government.

Our bill will prioritize cybersecurity research and development so we can harness innovation to protect our country and our private industries from cyber attacks.

I am very pleased that we have been able to introduce this legislation as an alternative to some of the other bills that have come out. I believe that if we can go forward with negotiating, perhaps we can come to an accommodation with the bills that have been introduced with other sponsors. But we don't think the bills that have been introduced address our concerns and we want to ensure that we do not have another big Federal bureaucracy, that we do not overlay the regulators who already have expertise in this area with new regulators whom we have to train

and deal with. We think the defense agencies--the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, DHS--all of those with their cybersecurity assets already in place are the better place to put the strength, not reinventing the wheel but better utilizing the systems we already have.

I think it is time for our Senate to address cyber security. I think we have good proposals out there; perhaps we can take the best of those. I think this is the right approach, and Senators McCain, Chambliss, Grassley, and Murkowski were key to drafting this legislation that I think will get the support of all of the stakeholders, as well as the House of Representatives, to actually pass a bill to improve our systems and take it to the President for signature.