[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 115 (Tuesday, July 31, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5694-S5705]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       CYBERSECURITY ACT OF 2012

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the pending 
business.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 3414) to enhance the security and resiliency of 
     the cyber and communications infrastructure of the United 
     States.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, every Senator has to decide what they 
are going to do every day when they wake up in the morning. For some in 
this Chamber, they wake up every day thinking about how they are going 
to stop President Obama, how they are going to stop his agenda, and how 
they are going to do everything they can to stop him from having a 
second term. Some spend their time waking up every day thinking about 
how they want to stop America from moving forward.
  That is not how I spend my day. I try to look at two things every 
day: the needs of my people--their day-to-day needs for a job, for an 
opportunity, for health care--and how that translates into national 
policy; then I try to look at the long range needs of our country. That 
is why I am excited about being on the Intelligence Committee, where I 
am working on protecting America from the cyber attacks that are 
happening every day to our country, including the stealing of identity 
and the stealing of trade secrets. I want to move America forward. I 
have worked very hard to do that.
  One of the areas I am most proud of that I have worked on with the 
men and women in this Chamber from both sides of the aisle is the whole 
area of women's health care. Many want to talk about repealing Obama 
health care. Well, I don't want to repeal it. They talk about replacing 
it. They never have an idea. So let me tell my colleagues one of the 
areas we fought for.
  One of the things we knew as we embarked upon the health care debate 
was that we wanted to save lives and we wanted to save money. One of 
the areas where we wanted to do both was to look at how to utilize the 
new scientific breakthroughs in prevention, particularly early 
detection and screening. We could identify those diseases with early 
intervention and save lives as well as money and counteract escalating 
disease that ultimately costs more and can even cost a life.
  Nowhere was it more glaring than with the issue of women's health 
care. My hearings revealed that women were charged more for their 
health care and got less than men of equal age and health care status. 
We found that we had barriers to health care because everything about 
being a woman was treated as a preexisting condition. If a woman had a 
C-section for the delivery of her baby, that was counted. In eight 
States, they even counted domestic violence as a preexisting condition. 
Then what we saw during this debate was the fact that they even wanted 
to take our mammograms away from us. Well, that just went too far.
  So during the health care debate, while everybody was being a bean 
counter, I wanted American women to know they could count on the Senate 
and the women and men of the Senate to stand up for them. So we came to 
the floor. We suited up, and we fought for a preventive health care 
amendment that not only passed but goes into effect tomorrow, on August 
1. It will be a new day for women of all ages, who will be able to get 
health care coverage for preventive health care at no additional cost, 
no copays, no deductibles, and no discrimination where they are charged 
more and get less. That is what ObamaCare is. If somebody wants to 
repeal that, then bring it on. We are ready to fight. We want to fight 
for that annual health care checkup that will involve mammograms, Pap 
testing, and pelvic exams. We want to be able to do the screening for 
that dread ``C'' word, for colorectal cancer and lung cancer. We want 
to make sure that if a person thinks they are possibly a victim--a 
doctor suspects domestic violence--we can screen and counsel. We want 
women to be able to have that access, to be able to know early on what 
are those illnesses they are facing.

  August 1 means our long-fought battle will actually go into effect. 
Where does it go into effect? Well, it is already in effect on the 
Federal law books. Now it will go into effect in doctors' offices. 
Women will have access to the health care their doctor says they need, 
not what an insurance company says they need or what some rightwinger 
wants to take away from them.
  We are pretty mad about this. We were mad 2 years ago when they 
wanted to take our mammograms away from us, and we are going to be 
pretty mad if they try to take our health care away from us. But what 
we are happy about--what we are happy about--is that for over more than 
50 million American women tomorrow it will be a new day. They will be 
able to walk into their doctor's office. In the doctor's office they 
will say: Good morning. Can I help you? And when they say: When was the 
last time you had a mammogram, and the patient says: Well, I never had 
one because I could not afford it, they will say: Oh, we can sign you 
right up for that. Tell me about your family history. Is it true that 
your father had colon cancer? Well, listen, we worry about that for 
you. You could be at high risk. We are going to take a look at that and 
make sure you are OK.
  For young women, we are going to make sure you have other kinds of 
counseling and services you need in order to have a productive family 
life. This is what this health care bill is all about. It is about 
people. It is about access. It is about preventing dread diseases.
  People will come to this floor and they will pound their chest and 
complain about the President. We want to pound the table and make sure 
women have gotten the health care they need.
  Tomorrow, we are going to be very excited when we keep the doors of 
doctors' offices open to the women of America.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first, I wish to give two thank-yous: 
first, to my colleague from California for letting me go ahead of her--
I have a Finance Committee meeting--and second, to both my colleague 
from Maryland and my colleague from California, whose voices are so 
clear and clarion. I love to listen to the Senator from Maryland. She 
speaks right to the people. She has it. She gets it. And do you know 
what. If we could get every American in a giant football stadium and 
they could listen to Senators Mikulski and Boxer on health care, 80 
percent would be for it. So I want to salute them and salute 
particularly Senator Mikulski for putting both the event earlier today 
and these speeches together.
  I heard the minority leader speak, and it meant two things. First, it 
meant the Republican party does not want to do cyber security. It means 
the greatest threat to our Nation--probably even greater than 
terrorism, if you speak to some of our intelligence and military 
experts--will not be dealt with because we know what he is doing. He is 
asking for an unreasonable demand, unrelated to cyber security, to go 
on the floor, knowing that will stop us from moving forward.
  It is a sad day. We have some of our colleagues from the other side 
of the aisle talking about that we must not abandon defense. Well, one 
of the strongest things the defense of our Nation needs is a strong 
cyber security bill. Because special interests--the Chamber of Commerce 
and others--do not want it, even though every military and intelligence 
leader has said how vital it is, it seems the other party's tea leaves 
show that the other party is going to block us from going forward. It 
is unfortunate and it is sad.
  Then, second, the way he chose to block cyber security could not be 
worse in terms of substance and in terms of timing. Today, July 31, the 
minority leader wants to put on the floor the repeal of so many things 
that are going to happen tomorrow to women and to men across America 
that benefit them. So his timing could not be worse. The very day 
before we are going to see huge benefits for the American people, he 
wants us to debate repeal. Why don't we let the American people see the 
good parts of health care before we repeal it. And we are not going to 
repeal it.
  I want to talk about this day--or tomorrow, actually--where so many 
portions of the Affordable Care Act go into effect.
  Three million women in my home State of New York will benefit. From

[[Page S5695]]

Buffalo to Montauk, in Albany and in Manhattan, 3 million women will 
receive free basic preventive care for themselves and their children. 
So many women and men do not get preventive services because it is 
expensive to them. These services are free. But not only will they make 
those people healthier--the No. 1 goal--but they will reduce the costs 
of health care because every expert--Democrat, Independent, Republican; 
moderate, liberal, conservative--says if you do more prevention, you 
are going to save money.
  Tomorrow, so many of those preventive services go into effect. More 
women will go in for annual preventive care visits to screen for 
cervical, ovarian, and breast cancers. More women will receive 
preconception and prenatal services, so their children can grow up 
healthy, active, and strong. More women will have access to 
contraception and its additional health benefits, such as reduced risk 
of breast cancer and protection against osteoporosis.
  New mothers will have access to support and supplies for 
breastfeeding, and more women will be screened for domestic and sexual 
violence, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV.
  To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: When we say there is 
a war against women and they get their backs up--they want to repeal 
this and put nothing in its place, no preventive services, no access to 
contraception, none of the things I have mentioned--yes, it is a war on 
women. Because if they cared about women and they did not like 
ObamaCare, they would still have a proposal on the floor to keep these 
fine pieces of the legislation going forward so they are not cut off 
tomorrow, which is what they intend to do, but, of course, thank God, 
will not happen.
  The change we are making helps every woman--who said: I would but I 
cannot afford it; it is just too expensive--finally get health care.
  Removing the copays is a great thing. Cutting the costs of preventive 
care is something we long wished to do in America and can happen 
tomorrow.
  What about all the other benefits that affect men and women alike: 
2.5 million young adults who can stay on their parents' insurance; 5.2 
million seniors--men and women--in the doughnut hole who save $3.7 
billion on prescription drugs?
  What about the idea that when your insurance company charges you too 
much, the money goes to profits and salaries and trips and advertising 
and not enough goes to health care? Starting tomorrow, you can get a 
rebate. We know our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--to them 
that is anathema, to make insurance companies give people a rebate.
  So bottom line: We want to move forward on a cyber security bill, and 
we regret that the leader is putting logs in its way. And even more 
importantly, we want benefits to millions of women and millions of men 
to go forward, as was intended, as was voted for, as is the law of the 
land, and we will not let them deter us from bringing people those 
benefits.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York for 
putting this into context for America.
  What has happened here this morning is, instead of celebrating with 
us because tomorrow, August 1, an entire list of preventive services 
for women goes into effect because of ObamaCare--yes, our health care 
law--the Republican leader says he wants to repeal all those benefits.
  Not only does the Republican leader, on behalf of the Republican 
minority, want to repeal the benefits that go into effect tomorrow for 
women, he wants to repeal the entire health care bill. He wants to have 
an amendment to the cyber security bill--which is so critical to our 
national security--he wants to put an amendment on there to repeal a 
law that the U.S. Supreme Court found was constitutional and whose 
benefits are beginning to take hold in this country, benefits that mean 
right now people are receiving refund checks in the mail because their 
insurance company overcharged them, and under ObamaCare you cannot do 
that, and hundreds of millions of dollars are going out to our people. 
The Republicans want to, I assume, force those people to send back 
their refunds because they want to repeal ObamaCare.
  Look at the list of preventive health benefits I have on this chart 
that are already in effect because of the legislation. Already because 
of health reform--and I see Senator Harkin in the Chamber, who 
shepherded this through, as our dear friend Ted Kennedy became sicker 
and sicker with brain cancer. I will never forget how Senator Harkin 
stepped up to the plate, Senator Dodd stepped up to the plate, Senator 
Mikulski stepped up to the plate, and they were the lieutenants who got 
it done. And the Republicans want to take it away. I can only imagine 
how Senator Harkin feels, having been in that fight. But I am here to 
say I am your supporter. I know what you did.
  I know my people in California--the largest State in the Union--are 
getting breast cancer screenings now, with no copays. They are getting 
cervical cancer screenings, hepatitis A and B vaccines, measles and 
mumps vaccines, colorectal cancer screenings, diabetes screenings, 
cholesterol screenings, blood pressure screenings, obesity screenings, 
tobacco cessation, autism screenings. How important is that? In my 
State, they say there is an epidemic of autism. They are getting 
hearing screenings for newborns, sickle cell screenings for newborns, 
fluoride supplements, tuberculosis testing for children, depression 
screenings. How important is that? They are getting osteoporosis 
screenings. I watched as my mother was in agony from osteoporosis. 
There are things you can do now to avoid it. But you need the 
screening. You need to know whether those bones are losing their 
density. They are getting flu vaccines for children and the elderly.
  This list goes into effect tomorrow. So let's take a look at the list 
that goes into effect tomorrow that my Republican friends want to 
repeal today.
  Tomorrow, women will get access to all of these things without copays 
or coinsurance: contraception, well-woman visits, STD screenings and 
counseling, breastfeeding support and supplies, domestic violence 
screenings, gestational diabetes screenings, HIV screenings, and HPV 
testing.
  I am stunned that on the eve of the broadest increase in benefits in 
my lifetime, the Republicans want to repeal these benefits for women. 
This is a continuation on their part of the war on women. They can get 
up and stand on their head and deny it and everything else. How else 
can you explain why, on the eve of the day that women are going to get 
all these benefits, they want to now cancel ObamaCare and stop all this 
from happening?
  If you think it does not matter--let me say to you, Mr. President, I 
know you know it matters whether women get free contraception to cut 
back on unintended pregnancies and abortion and well-woman visits and 
breastfeeding support. How about domestic violence screenings--so 
critical. Some women are in these terrible relationships, and they go 
to the doctor, and they say: Well, I do not want to talk about it. 
Doctors will be taught how to spot domestic violence, and there can be 
an intervention that will save lives.
  So here we stand. We have this list of benefits, women's preventive 
health benefits, that are going to go into effect tomorrow.
  We are here to celebrate that. And instead of our Republican 
colleagues coming on the floor and joining us and saying how wonderful 
this is, and by the way, at the end of the day this saves money--we all 
know that. We all know it saves money when you have screening and 
counseling for STDs and you head off an illness. We all know it saves 
money. The health care bill saves money, and it reduces the deficit 
because of this investment in prevention. I cannot think of a more 
ridiculous situation than after a bill has become law for how many 
years now, Senator Harkin? Is it a couple of years since we passed it? 
Years. It went to the Supreme Court. It was upheld. And now, just as we 
are about to see these great benefits for women go into place, the 
Republican leader says: Let's repeal ObamaCare today. Let's have an 
amendment on the cyber security bill, he said, to repeal the entire 
health care law.
  The House voted 33 times, at least, to repeal it. So I am wondering, 
what is with this idea of repealing? Do you want to take away these 
benefits from

[[Page S5696]]

women? From children? From men? From families? Yes, I guess you do. I 
guess you stand for going back to the old days when people could hear 
from their insurance company that they were cut off, when insurance 
companies could spend 70 percent on themselves, on their own perks, and 
CEOs getting hundreds of millions of dollars and you, the patient, 
getting hardly anything. They want to go back. They want to take away 
the refunds. They want to take away the funding our seniors are getting 
as they deal with the high cost of prescription drugs. And we fixed 
that in this bill.
  So I have to say, we make an investment in prevention, in keeping 
people healthy. We make sure being a woman is not a preexisting 
condition. And the Republicans today have relaunched their war against 
women. They are holding up the Violence Against Women Act that we 
passed over here in a bipartisan way. They will not take up the Senate 
bill and pass it. Why? They want to take away coverage in that bill 
from 30 million Americans.
  They do not care about the immigrant population, obviously, the most 
vulnerable women there. They do not care about the college students, 
apparently. Because we get extra protections for them on college 
campuses. We protect the LGBT community. Clearly they are not 
interested in that. And they are not interested in protecting the 
Native American women.
  So while the Speaker says: Oh, I will send conferees to a nonexistent 
conference on the Violence Against Women Act, he could simply pass the 
bill and make sure everyone is protected. Instead of celebrating today 
because women are getting all these wonderful benefits without a copay, 
they want to repeal all these benefits. They want to repeal this law.
  Truly, I do not know what motivates them. I do not speak for them. 
But if they say it is to save money, that is simply not true. Because 
this bill saves money. This law saves money. Because we are investing 
in prevention. So the only thing I can think of is they want to hurt 
this President.
  The Republican leader said his highest priority was making sure that 
President Obama is a one-term President. So I guess if it means 
attacking the health care law to hurt this President, he is willing to 
do it and hurt all my constituents who are getting these benefits and 
all of our constituents who are getting these benefits, hurting the 
American people.
  Well, I say put politics aside. Let's see the Republicans come down 
here and celebrate the fact that finally our people are getting the 
health care they deserve and that they pay for.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleagues on the 
floor today--I thank Senator Boxer and Senator Harkin for their 
leadership--just as I was proud back in December of 2009 to join 
Senator Mikulski in sponsoring the women's health amendment to the 
Affordable Care Act.
  We are here today celebrating the fact that tomorrow, August 1, women 
will have access to important health services at no cost. Senator Boxer 
showed very clearly what a number of those preventive services are. 
Thanks to the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that go into effect 
this week, women will have access to a broad range of preventive 
services from well woman and prenatal visits to gestational diabetes 
screening, and they will have access to those services without 
copayments or deductibles. So finances will no longer stand in the way 
of women getting the preventive health care they need.
  This also has the potential to save our health system money in the 
long run. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 75 percent of 
our health care spending is on people with chronic diseases. So by 
taking these preventive measures, we can slow this growth and the 
associated cost of disease.
  One of those preventive measures I want to talk about this morning is 
screening for gestational diabetes. As cochair of the Senate Diabetes 
Caucus, I understand the importance of gestational diabetes screening 
and the impact it can have on both the mother and the baby. Gestational 
diabetes affects almost 18 percent of all pregnancies in the United 
States. Unfortunately, the number of those cases is increasing. The 
consequences of gestational diabetes are real. Not only are there 
significant health effects for the mother and baby during pregnancy, 
but researchers have found that both the mother and baby may be at risk 
for developing type 2 diabetes later in life. By getting screened, both 
the mother and child can be alerted to potential long-term health 
risks.
  I want to tell the story of one of my constituents, Megan from 
Panacook, NH, because she is a great example of why this screening is 
so important. During her 28th week of pregnancy, Megan was diagnosed 
with gestational diabetes. The screening she had alerted her to the 
potential related health issues and they allowed her to get the 
necessary treatment. I am happy to report that Megan gave birth to a 
healthy baby girl, Grace. She is now 8 weeks old. Under the Affordable 
Care Act, all pregnant women will now be able to receive the 
gestational diabetes screening for free.
  Tomorrow also marks an important milestone in women's health for 
another preventive service. Women, beginning tomorrow, will have access 
to contraception at no cost. Birth control is something that most women 
use, and it is something the medical community believes is essential to 
the health of a woman and her family. For some 1.5 million women, birth 
control pills are not used for contraception but for medical purposes. 
They can reduce the risk of some cancers. With costs as high as $600 a 
year, birth control can be a serious economic concern for many women. 
Being able to now receive birth control for no cost will bring 
financial relief to so many of those women.
  Again, I have a story of a young woman from New Hampshire who I think 
illustrates so clearly why these are such important provisions. Keri 
Wolfe from Swanzey, NH, is a full-time graduate student at Dartmouth. 
She is going to benefit from this provision because Keri takes birth 
control as a medical necessity for treating a health issue that affects 
her adrenal gland. While Keri is lucky to have insurance, she has to 
pay her plan's full deductible and then a monthly copay for her birth 
control. As a student who is trying to balance academic and living 
expenses, her prescriptions come at a significant cost annually. When 
her new insurance plan goes into effect, Keri is going to be able to 
get the full price of her birth control covered. That is great news in 
making sure she gets the health care she needs.
  As Governor of New Hampshire, I was proud to sign legislation that 
required insurance companies to provide contraceptive coverage to women 
with no religious exemption. At that time it was understood by people 
on both sides of the aisle of all religious faiths that requiring 
contraceptive coverage was about women's health, and it was a basic 
health care decision. Yet over the last several months, opponents have 
continued to roll back contraceptive coverage at both the State and 
Federal level. Every woman should be able to make her own health care 
decisions. She should not have to have her boss stand in the way. The 
provisions that go into effect tomorrow ensure that women can make 
these decisions.
  I thank Senator Mikulski and Senator Harkin for their leadership on 
women's health. I join them in celebrating these important provisions 
that are going to make a huge difference for women's health, that are 
going to be good for women, for families, and for everyone in this 
country.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first of all, let me commend the Senator 
from New Hampshire for her great leadership as a Governor and as a 
Senator in this whole area of health care for women especially. She is 
providing great leadership in this area, continues to provide that 
leadership. I want to join with the Senator from New Hampshire in 
saying we are not going to let these provisions that now are expanding 
coverage for so many women--47 million women in America--we are not 
going to let these roll back. We are not.
  Again, if the people of this country elect Mr. Romney to be President 
and they turn over the Senate to the Republicans, there it goes. It is 
gone. It is

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gone. I did not hear this this morning, but I understand the Republican 
leader said this morning--I stand to be corrected. As I understand, he 
said they wanted the first amendment that would be offered on the cyber 
security bill that I think is now before the Senate--he wanted the 
first amendment to be a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
  What timing. What timing, I say to the Republican leader. On the eve 
of when we are expanding preventive health care services for 47 million 
women in America, the Republican leader gets up and says: We want to 
vote to repeal this tomorrow. Tomorrow. Repeal it tomorrow.
  Does that not kind of give you some idea of how they feel about the 
women of America and the health care of our mothers, our sisters, our 
daughters? That is what they want.
  We have already voted 33 times to repeal portions of the health care 
act. I think we voted twice in the Senate to repeal the whole thing. 
They want to have another vote. I think it is more than curious that 
the Republican leader wants to vote to repeal it on the very day when 
we are expanding health care coverage for the women of America. 
Interesting.
  Tomorrow is an important day for American women, thanks again to key 
provisions of the Affordable Care Act. I do want to commend Senator 
Mikulski for her great leadership in this area, Senator Dodd, Senator 
Bingaman. Senator Kennedy, when he became ill, asked us to take the 
leadership on different provisions of the Affordable Care Act on the 
HELP Committee and to get it through.
  We had wonderful support from our colleagues here on the floor of the 
Senate and our committee. These provisions that we put in to move us 
from a sick care system to a health care system--I have often said that 
in America we do not have a health care system, we have a sick care 
system. If you get sick, you will get care one way or the other, 
usually in the emergency room if you are poor, or maybe not at all if 
you do not make it to the emergency room. But there is very little in 
our country to keep you healthy in the first place. Yet we know, we 
have good data that shows preventive services upfront save you a lot of 
money and a lot of lives, a lot of pain and suffering later on. So in 
the Affordable Care Act we put in a big provision on preventive 
services. We said basically that what the Preventive Services Task 
Force of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention--what they 
listed as their A and B, those that had the, if I can use their term, 
``best return on investment'' or the ``biggest impact,'' that those 
would be free, there would be no copays or deductibles.
  Senator Mikulski reminded us of what is obvious but not too often 
taken into consideration in legislation; that is, women are different 
from men. So we asked the Institute of Medicine to come up with 
provisions that applied to the preventive health care of women. That is 
what goes into effect tomorrow.
  Senator Boxer very eloquently talked about that and had the chart 
showing all of the different things that will start tomorrow--an all-
new plan that would cover women in this country--again, to keep women 
healthy in the first place, preventive services to keep women healthy 
without copays and deductibles.

  Right on the eve of this wonderful expansion of health care coverage, 
of making sure women are not second-class citizens when it comes to 
prevention and wellness--on the very eve of saying to women that no 
longer can insurance companies sort of say, because you are a woman you 
have a preexisting condition--the Senate Republican leader gets up and 
says he wants to have the next vote on repealing the health care bill.
  Talk about a slap in the face to the women of this country. Well, I 
think women know what they are facing coming up this fall. I point out 
that tomorrow about 520,000 women in Iowa will have expanded health 
care coverage, preventive services. We fought very hard to put these 
into law, and we are not going to let them repeal it. We have the 
votes--let's face it--in the Senate to stop that. The Republican leader 
can bring it up again, and it can be voted on, but I think it is 
indicative of where they want to take this country.
  We can stop it now, but if Mr. Romney is elected President, he said 
on day one he wants to repeal it. When he is first sworn in he will 
send up legislation to repeal it, and if the Senate and the House are 
in Republican hands, we can kiss it goodbye. It is gone. We will not be 
able to stop it then.
  It is hard to believe, but prior to the Affordable Care Act essential 
services that were unique to women, such as maternity care, were not 
often included in health plans. Tomorrow, we include preventive care 
checkups, screening for gestational diabetes, and breast-feeding 
support and supplies.
  How many low-income women in this country would know that the best 
thing for their babies is breast milk? Breast feeding, we know, is the 
preferred method of starting off babies, but sometimes these supplies 
can be expensive, especially if women are working at a low-wage job and 
they may need these supplies, but they can't afford it, so, therefore, 
they turn to another method, to formula for the babies. I am not saying 
formula is bad, but as we know, and doctors will tell us--every 
pediatrician will tell us that breast feeding is the best. But women 
would be forced to choose the less best option if they didn't have 
these breast-feeding supports and supplies.
  Let me take head on, if I can, this idea of contraception. As the 
Senator from New Hampshire pointed out, this can be pretty expensive--
up to $600 a year or more. For one of us who is making $172,000 a year 
and have great health care coverage, that is not a big deal. But to a 
low-income woman with a couple of kids, working at a minimum wage job, 
trying to scrape enough just to get by, $600 a year is a lot of money.
  Let me point out another facet of this issue. Somehow people think, 
for example, birth control pills are only to prevent a pregnancy. There 
are many young women of childbearing age in this country who take birth 
control pills on the advice of their doctor not to avoid a pregnancy 
but because their monthly cycles are so painful that they can't even 
work. So what are we saying? A young woman who gets a prescription from 
the doctor and says it is not for birth control but is for other 
physical problems, she has to take that in and show it to her employer 
now or her insurance carrier? That makes women second-class citizens 
again. Nonsense.
  I respect religious freedom as much as anyone, but despite the 
Republican propaganda, this law doesn't mandate that any woman has to 
use contraception, and it doesn't force employers to provide it. It 
gives women affordable access to birth control for a variety of reasons 
should they and their doctor decide it is right for them or their 
families. As for religious organizations that object to contraception, 
the President has issued a very sensible compromise to accommodate 
their beliefs, while ensuring that women still have access to this 
critical service.
  I respect the views of all people on these often divisive issues, and 
I would oppose any measure that threatens the fundamental religious 
liberties of people or institutions. But the Republicans are not 
motivated by a genuine desire to protect religious liberty; rather, 
they are determined to undo these and other benefits for women in the 
Affordable Care Act. They have repeatedly introduced legislation, 
approved by the House Appropriations Committee, that allows anyone to 
opt out of providing services to which they have any religious or moral 
objection.
  Well, one might say that sounds reasonable on the face of it, but 
think about this. Any employer with any religious or moral objection 
could opt out of any coverage. They could say, well, they object not 
only to contraception but to mammograms, prenatal screening. They just 
have a moral objection to that based upon their religious beliefs.
  I respect Christian scientists--I always have--and their beliefs. Can 
they say, well, they are not going to cover insurance for an employee 
who goes to see a doctor for allopathic medical care, that is not their 
religious belief?
  We have to have reasonable compromise, and I believe the President 
has come up with that. So what the Republicans would do, according to 
their leader, is rob 47 million women of these new preventive services. 
They would rob 1 million young women of the insurance they have already 
gained

[[Page S5698]]

through the Affordable Care Act, of an extension of dependent coverage. 
America's women will not be dragged backward. They are not going to 
allow health insurance companies to return to the policies and abuses 
that hurt them and their families prior to the passage of the 
Affordable Care Act.
  Tomorrow marks another step forward in transforming our current sick 
care system into a true health care system, and many women will now 
experience this firsthand. We are going forward. The Republicans can 
bring it up time and time again. They have sent a very clear signal to 
the women of America that whatever they gain out of the Affordable Care 
Act--all these benefits--they are going to take them away from women if 
they put them in office.
  I think the women of America need to have some deep soul searching 
about who they want deciding their fate in the future, after this next 
election.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. First, I thank my colleague from Iowa, Senator Harkin, 
for the clarity of his statement, for his sincerity and, most 
importantly, for his leadership. We have the Affordable Care Act 
because of Tom Harkin, Chris Dodd, Barbara Mikulski, and others who 
worked hard to make sure it was here to help families all across 
America, particularly those in low-income situations.
  Like Senator Harkin, I was stunned this morning when the Republican 
leader came to the floor and said: The first thing we want to do is to 
repeal all of this health care preventive care that will be available 
across America, including the provisions that go into effect tomorrow 
protecting 47 million of our women and family members all across the 
United States--2 million in Illinois, I might add, will be helped by 
this. They insist on bringing up on the pending bill on the Senate 
floor this amendment to basically remove the protection for these women 
that is built into the Affordable Care Act.
  I have to say to Senator Harkin, we can't be too surprised at this. 
Does the Senator remember the very first amendment the Republicans 
offered on the Transportation bill--a bill that we wanted to pass to 
build highways and airports? Remember what Senator Blunt, the 
Republican from Missouri, offered as the first Republican amendment to 
the Transportation bill? It was on family planning. Family planning on 
transportation? I guess some late night comedian can make a connection, 
but I don't get it.
  Now we have the pending cyber security bill to protect America from a 
cyber attack that could cost American lives--something we are told is 
the No. 1 threat to America--and Senator McConnell comes to the floor 
on behalf of the Republicans and says: This bill won't go forward 
unless we can offer an amendment to repeal the Affordable Care Act--
repeal the protections that are there for families and women across 
America.
  It is stunning that no matter what issue we go to the Republican 
Senators return to this issue of denying health care coverage and 
denying protection and preventive care to our families. In a way--the 
Senator touched on it--it is pretty easy for a Senator to come to the 
floor and talk about somebody else's health care because, as you and I 
know, and Senator McConnell knows, the health care we have as Members 
of the Senate--American families would die for the health care we have. 
We have the best health care insurance in the world, and we have it in 
a government-administered plan that protects every Senator and their 
family. We are lucky. We are in the Federal Employees Health Benefits 
Plan. I believe people across America should have the same opportunity 
for the same type of health care.
  I am still waiting for the first Republican Senator who gets up on 
the floor and denounces government-administered health care to walk to 
the well and say: As a proof of my sincerity, I am going to abandon my 
own health insurance as a Senator. Not one has done that, not a single 
one.
  So for the Senators who come to the floor, their wives will still be 
protected by our health insurance, and their daughters will still be 
protected. The question we have to ask is, Should the protection we 
have as Senators for our families be available to others all across 
America? That is what this is about.
  Tomorrow is the launch of an amazing development in health care 
protection for our families. I applaud it. My wife and I are still 
celebrating because our daughter gave birth to twins in November. We 
have twin grandchildren--now 8 months old. They got through the 
pregnancy well; she was cared for and did just great. We are so proud 
of our daughter, our son-in-law, and their family. I think about the 
provision that will go into effect tomorrow. The Senator from Iowa 
knows that pregnant women in danger of gestational diabetes that could 
threaten their lives and the lives of the babies they are carrying will 
have preventive screening to protect them.
  Don't come to the floor and tell me you are pro-life and pro-family 
and you oppose that. If you want a healthy mom and baby, this screening 
that starts tomorrow for millions of American women is going to be a 
step forward, a positive step toward uneventful births and healthy 
babies. Think about the care and screening for cancer and for all of 
the problems that women face.
  I see Senator Murray on the Senate floor. She has been an 
extraordinary leader on this issue. I will yield to her in a moment.
  All those who are on this campaign to repeal ObamaCare--that was 
their slur on that, and we accept it. It was accomplished under 
President Obama, and I was proud to vote for it. It is one of the most 
important votes I ever cast as a Member of the Senate. Those who want 
to repeal this so-called ObamaCare--as Senator McConnell called for 
again today on behalf of the Republicans--would repeal a few basic 
things we should not forget. Every family in America has a child with a 
preexisting condition. Think of asthma, diabetes, or a history of 
cancer.
  Under our law, they cannot be denied health insurance coverage. We 
protect those kids, and we protect their families. The Senate 
Republicans want to repeal it. Seniors across America who are paying 
for prescription drugs and going into their savings to fill the 
doughnut hole each year are getting a helping hand from the affordable 
health care act. The Senate Republicans want to repeal it. Families 
across America with kids fresh out of college looking for jobs and 
can't find them or have a job without good health care can still be 
covered under their parents' policy until the young person reaches the 
age of 26. That is what the affordable health care act does. The Senate 
Republicans want to repeal it. And tomorrow 47 million women in America 
will have preventive screening so they can be healthy on an affordable 
basis and be mothers giving birth to healthy babies. That is in this 
new law, and the Senate Republicans want to repeal it.
  This isn't just a war against the pill. This isn't just a war against 
family planning. It is literally a war against women. And the 
statements of the Senate Republican leader on the floor today are proof 
positive that they have one focus, and that is to take away these 
protections we built into the law.
  I am happy to yield the floor for our leader on this issue, my 
colleague from Washington State.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today very excited 
about the great progress America is going to make tomorrow, August 1, 
for women across this country and to share the outrage I just heard 
from the Senator from Illinois and others that before those even go 
into effect tomorrow, on the eve of this great opportunity for so many 
women, the Republican leader has come to the floor and said: We want to 
repeal it--first amendment, on an issue not related at all to cyber 
security but to take those away before they even begin.
  It is an exciting moment for women in this country. Two years ago 
health insurance companies could deny women care due to so-called 
preexisting conditions such as pregnancy or being a victim of domestic 
violence--denied. Two years ago women were legally discriminated 
against when it came to insurance premiums and were often paying more 
for coverage than their male counterparts.

[[Page S5699]]

Two years ago women did not have access to the full range of 
recommended preventive care, such as mammograms or prenatal screenings, 
that the Senator from Illinois talked about. Two years ago insurance 
companies had all the leverage. Two years ago, too often, women paid 
the price. That is why I am so proud today to come to the floor with so 
many of our colleagues to highlight just how far we have come for women 
in the past 2 years and the new ways women will benefit from health 
care reform starting tomorrow, August 1.
  Since the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land, women have 
now been treated more fairly when it comes to health care costs and 
options. Deductibles and other expenses have been capped, so a health 
care crisis won't cause a family to lose their home or their life 
savings. Women can use the health care exchanges to pick quality plans 
that work for themselves and their families. And if they change jobs or 
have to move, which so many people have to do today, they can keep 
their coverage.
  Starting tomorrow, August 1, additional types of maternity care are 
going to be covered. Women will be armed with the proper tools and 
resources in order to take the right steps to have a healthy pregnancy. 
Starting tomorrow, women will have access to domestic partner violence 
screening and counseling, as well as screening for sexually transmitted 
infections. Starting tomorrow, women will finally have access to 
affordable birth control so we can lower rates in maternal and infant 
mortality and reduce the risk of ovarian cancer and improve overall 
health outcomes and encourage far fewer unintended pregnancies and 
abortions, which is a goal we all share.
  I also wish to note that the affordable contraceptive policy we put 
in place preserves the rights of all Americans while also protecting 
the rights of millions of Americans who do use contraceptives, who 
believe that family planning is the right choice for them, and who 
don't deserve to have politics or ideology prevent them from getting 
the coverage they deserve and want.
  Starting tomorrow, women will be fully in charge of their health 
care, not an insurance company. That is why I feel so strongly that we 
cannot go back to the way things were. While we can never stop working 
to make improvements, which we all know are important, we owe it to the 
women of America to make progress and not allow the clock to be rolled 
back on their health care needs.
  Despite the recent Supreme Court decision upholding this law, I know 
some of our Republican colleagues are furiously working to undo all the 
gains we have made in health care reform for women and families. We 
heard the minority leader this morning come to the floor, and he wants 
to offer an amendment on the next bill that is now coming up on 
cybersecurity to repeal all of these important protections for women, 
that women are taking advantage of today, and certainly something we 
all should want for our families and our daughters and for the women in 
this country. I know they apparently think repealing the entire health 
care law would be a political winner for them, but the truth is that 
this law is a winner for women and for men and for children and for our 
health care system overall.
  So I am proud to be out here with my colleagues today who are 
committed to making sure the benefits of this law do not get taken away 
from the women of America because politics and ideology should not 
matter when it comes to making sure women across America get the care 
they need at a cost they can afford.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, as the Senate now turns its attention 
to the pending legislation that aims to enhance our Nation's cyber 
defenses, I would like to take a few moments to review where we are 
because I think the bill we now have on the floor brings us closer than 
ever to an agreement on a way to better defend our country, our 
prosperity, and our security against what is emerging as the most 
significant threat we face today, bigger than a conventional attack by 
a foreign enemy, bigger even than Islamist terrorism, a threat that is 
very different from anything we have faced before and so probably hard 
for most Americans to conceptualize but, trust me, it is here. That is 
why it is so important. We have come closer than ever to an agreement, 
but we are not there yet.
  I have come to the floor to say to my colleagues that those of us who 
sponsor the pending legislation--Senators Feinstein, Rockefeller, 
Collins, and I--are eager to continue to work with our colleagues 
toward a broad bipartisan solution to this urgent national security 
threat--crisis. Obviously, to do that we have to begin processing 
amendments, and they have to be what the majority leader has said: 
germane or relevant. The majority leader has said we will have an open 
amendment process, and I thank him for that. No filling of the tree 
here. But the amendments have to be germane or relevant. We are dealing 
with a national security crisis unlike any we have faced before.
  A broad bipartisan group of us met with the leaders of our cyber 
defense agencies yesterday--not political people, not partisan people--
and they urgently appealed to us to pass this legislation in this 
session of Congress. It gives them authority to protect us that they 
don't have now. Frankly, they worry that without that authority to 
share information with the private sector, for the private sector to 
share cyber threat information with each other without fear of 
liability, for the government to have the ability to create some 
standards for the private owners of cyber space and then give them the 
voluntary option to abide by those standards--that all of those add-
ons, all of those realities that will be created by passage of this 
bill are desperately needed now. The fact is they were needed 
yesterday. They were needed last year.
  That is why I am so disheartened to hear this morning that our 
friends in the Republican caucus are talking about introducing an 
amendment to this bill that will repeal ObamaCare, as they call it. 
There is a day for that, but it is not this week on this bill. Frankly, 
I feel the same way about some of the gun control amendments that have 
been submitted by members of the Democratic caucus. Those amendments 
deserve debate at some point but not this week on this bill.
  We can get this bill done and protect our security. Nobody believes 
that we are going to repeal ObamaCare this week or that we are going to 
adopt gun control legislation. Those are making a statement. They are 
sending a political message. And they will get in the way of us 
protecting our national security.
  So I appeal to my colleagues on both sides, pull back these 
irrelevant amendments. Let's have a full and open debate on cyber 
security, and let's get it done this week. There are already more than 
70 amendments filed that are germane or relevant.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time for the majority has expired.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask my friend from Kansas if I could have 2 more 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Kansas.
  There are already 70 amendments filed, so we don't have time to sit 
here staring at each other while we could be working through them. The 
truth is that we have a number of amendments on which we are ready to 
take votes, but of course we need cooperation from both sides in order 
to nail down that agreement with the consent that is required.
  Before I yield the floor, I wish to underscore that while there are 
important issues we still need to work through this week, the reality 
is that because Senators on all sides have been willing to compromise, 
we have a golden opportunity to prove we can work together when it 
counts the most, which is in defense of our security and prosperity. 
Leading sponsors of the pending bill, leading sponsors of the leading 
opposition bill, SECURE IT, and leaders of the peacemakers in between 
led by Senators Kyl and Whitehouse  have been meeting for the last week 
and making progress. And I would say that what was once a wide chasm 
separating us is now a narrow ridge, which we can bridge--and I firmly 
believe we will--with good faith on all sides, in a willingness to 
compromise. You can rarely get 100 percent

[[Page S5700]]

of what you want in a democratic--small ``d''--legislature such as 
ours, but if each side can get 75 or 80 percent and we can begin to fix 
a problem and close the vulnerabilities that exist in our cyber 
infrastructure this week, we will have done exactly what the American 
people want us to do. That is my appeal to my colleagues.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I wish to thank my distinguished friend 
and colleague, Senator Lieberman, for his leadership and for urging 
Members of Congress to bring amendments down that are germane on very 
serious national security issues. So I again thank him for his comments 
and his leadership.


                          Honor Flight Network

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a distinguished 
group of World War II veterans from Kansas who are now visiting their 
Nation's Capital this week as part of the Honor Flight Network.
  The Honor Flight Network is an organization with the main mission to 
give veterans the opportunity to visit their memorials on the National 
Mall, free of cost to the veteran. The veterans who participate are 
many times unsung heroes of World War II, and in many cases their 
remembrances and their stories are shared for the first time and become 
public for the first time for families and hometowns. In many cases, 
young people traveling with these veterans hear the stories and can put 
the stories of these famous battles that protected our country in their 
local newspapers and in their school newspapers. It is history--it is 
history shared, lessons learned, and certainly renewed thanks to the 
``greatest generation.''
  Many of these veterans are in their eighties and nineties. There are 
fewer than 20,000 World War II veterans in Kansas. As time marches on, 
that number only decreases. Nationwide, the VA estimates that 
approximately 740 members of the ``greatest generation'' pass each 
day. So I am especially pleased that this Tuesday a group of 28 
veterans will fly in to our Nation's Capital from Kansas to see their 
World War II memorial, and other memorials, and allow us the privilege 
to pay homage to their heroism. With five regional hubs in Kansas, 
there is a steady stream of veteran groups making their way to our 
Nation's Capital. The leaders of these groups include Brian Spencer and 
Bill Patterson leading the Honor Flight Kansas Student Edition from 
Lyndon, KS; Adrianne McDaniel and Peggy Hill, who lead the Jackson 
Heights Honor Flight; Beverly Mortimer and Denise Cyr head up the North 
Central Kansas Honor Flight out of Concordia, KS; Mike Kastle and Jeff 
True guide the Southern Coffey County High School Honor Flight out of 
Leroy, KS; and finally, the leaders of this group coming in on Tuesday 
are Mike VanCampen and Lowell Downey.

  These hub leaders and the many volunteers deserve our recognition for 
the hours of work, organization, and fundraising that go into planning 
these trips. Thank you for what you do and for setting such a fine 
example in remembering and honoring the sacrifices made by those who 
stood in defense of our country in World War II.
  Kansans and all Americans should know that this program--as a matter 
of fact, the World War II Memorial itself would not even exist without 
our former Senate majority leader, the senior Senator from Kansas and a 
World War II veteran himself, Bob Dole. Bob was instrumental in 
bringing the World War II Memorial to the National Mall. And even now 
Bob meets personally with Honor Flight groups who make their way out to 
see their memorial. When veterans learn that Bob Dole is at the World 
War II memorial, there is a crush of veterans like a flock of chickens 
going to the mother hen. I am not sure Bob Dole will appreciate that 
allegory, but at least I think that indicates everybody comes to hear 
him and thank him for his efforts.
  Finally, I wish to recognize each member of this Honor Flight trip 
from Kansas visiting their memorial, and I ask unanimous consent that 
their names be printed in the Congressional Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Kansas Honor Flight Network Trip--July 31-Aug. 2, 2012--World War II 
                        and Korean War Veterans


                         World War II Veterans

       Dwight E. Aldrich; William Henry Bernard; Eugene H. Brown; 
     Thomas Dale Coffman; Glenn J. Compton; Richard D. Ellison; 
     Perry L. Garten; Bob F. Holdaway; Edwin D. Jacques; Paul H. 
     Koehn; Jay Edwin Kramer; Howard Russell Krohn; Howard Logan; 
     Ralph Lundell; John L. Meyer; Richard Morrow Mosier; Charles 
     G. Niemberger; Harvey L. Peck; Donald L. Revert (Don); John 
     Russel Roberts; Rix D. Shanline; Lowell L. Smart; Norbert E. 
     Stigge (Doc); John D. Topham; Delmar L. Yarrow; George A. 
     Yohn; Keith R. Zinn.


                           Korean War Veteran

       Richard D. Wood.

  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I know under the order this hour is 
reserved for Members of the Republican caucus, and although I am an 
Independent, I don't qualify exactly under the terms of the agreement 
to speak now. But seeing no Member of the Republican caucus on the 
floor, I thought I would take the opportunity to continue to speak 
about the pending item, S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, and if 
any of my colleagues arrive, I will yield to them immediately.
  Before I yielded to Senator Roberts a short while ago, I made a 
statement that the two sides, if I can put it that way; that is, the 
sponsors of the pending legislation, Senators Collins, Feinstein, 
Rockefeller, and myself, and the sponsors of essentially the alternate 
approach, SECURE IT, sponsored by Senators McCain, Chambliss, 
Hutchison, and others--have been meeting. We have particularly been 
assisted by the bridge builders here--blessed are the peacemakers--
Senators Kyl, Whitehouse, and others, and we have been making progress. 
I said what was once a chasm separating us is now a narrow ridge that 
we are close to bridging. Let me explain what I mean by that.
  The sponsors of S. 3414, the pending legislation, strongly believe 
that owners of critical cyber infrastructure--and this is a unique 
aspect of our free society, thank God; 80 to 85 percent of the critical 
infrastructure in our country is privately owned, including cyber 
infrastructure. That is the way it ought to be. But it means when 
critical cyber infrastructure in a new world becomes a target of cyber 
attack and cyber theft, that we--the rest of us Americans--represented 
by the government, have to enter into a partnership with the private 
sector owners of critical cyber infrastructure so they will take steps 
to protect the cyber space that they own and operate because, if they 
don't, the whole country is in jeopardy. If an electric grid is knocked 
out, the kind of awful experiences we have all had at different times 
when the power grid has been out in our area of the country will be 
felt perhaps for weeks and weeks.
  Think about it. What if the financial cyber system, Wall Street, the 
hub of the systems that handle millions--trillions, really--of 
transactions over and over again, were knocked out? It would have a 
devastating effect on our economy, let alone the most nightmarish, 
which is that some enemy breaks into the cyber-control system of a dam 
holding back water and opens the dam and floods surrounding communities 
with a terrible loss of life. We could go on and on with the nightmare 
scenarios, but they are out there, and we are vulnerable to them.
  So the sponsors of S. 3414 have felt that private sector owners of 
critical infrastructure should be mandated--that is only the owners of 
the most critical infrastructure--to adopt the standards that would be 
set under our legislation to protect their systems and our country. 
Sponsors of the SECURE IT Act started this debate firmly convinced that 
the only thing we need to do is to enhance our cyber security 
information-sharing between private sector operators and between the 
government and the private sector. We have a section in our bill that 
does exactly that, but we feel that is not

[[Page S5701]]

enough. We feel there also needs to be these standards set for the 
private operators of the electric grid, of the transportation system, 
of the financial system, et cetera. If both sides had just stuck to 
their guns, no legislation would be possible. But when it comes to 
cyber security, no legislation, which is to say the status quo, is not 
only unacceptable, it is dangerous. Some of our real--really most of 
our national security leaders in this country from the last two 
administrations, the George W. Bush administration and the Barack Obama 
administration--have warned, as if in a single voice, that we are 
already facing the equivalent of a digital Pearl Harbor or a 9/11 if we 
don't shore up and defend our exposed cyber flanks. The same is true of 
the impact of our vulnerability in cyber space to cyber theft.
  GEN Keith Alexander, the head of the Defense Department Cyber Command 
and the National Security Agency, made a speech a week or two ago in 
which he estimated that more than $1 trillion has been stolen over 
cyber space from America. He called it the largest transfer of wealth 
in history. That results from moving money out of bank accounts that a 
lot of us never hear about because the banks believe it would be 
embarrassing if we knew, the theft of industrial secrets to other 
countries that then builds from those industrial secrets and creates 
the jobs in their countries that our companies wanted to create here. 
So there is a unified position among national security leaders, apart 
from which administration they served under, that we need this 
legislation, and we need it urgently.
  Several of us met with the leaders of the cyber security agencies of 
this administration yesterday. These are not political people; these 
are professionals from the Department of Homeland Security, the 
Department of Defense, the FBI, and others. They warned us again that 
the cyber systems that are privately owned and that are critical to our 
Nation's security remain terribly vulnerable to attack. They said to 
us, and I am paraphrasing, that we need this legislation to respond 
urgently and effectively to an attack on infrastructure as critical as 
the electric grid or Wall Street itself.
  One of the leaders in our government, uniformed leaders, said to him 
today is a little bit like 1993 when it comes to cyber security; when, 
as we will remember, al-Qaida launched a precursor attack on the Twin 
Towers in New York with a truck bomb that blew up in the parking 
garage. We all know there was a loss of life then, but the damage was 
relatively small. But al-Qaida persisted and, of course, on 9/11 
succeeded in bringing down the two towers of the World Trade Center. 
This leader of cyber security efforts in our government said our 
adversaries in cyber space are just about where al-Qaida was in 1993 
when they blew up that truck bomb in the parking garage of the World 
Trade Center.
  What I was impressed with yesterday, I will say parenthetically, is 
though there is some controversy out here about who is capable of what 
in our Federal Government--and let me speak frankly. Some people don't 
have much respect for the Department of Homeland Security. I don't 
understand why because they do a great job, in my opinion, in so many 
different areas, including the one that is relevant here, cyber 
security. But it was clear that the Department of Homeland Security, 
the Department of Defense, and the FBI are working as a team--really, 
like a seamless team--24/7, 365 days a year to leverage each other's 
capabilities to provide for the common defense. They all agreed 
yesterday we need to pass this legislation to give them the tools they 
urgently need, that they don't have without this legislation, to work 
with one another and the private sector.

  I wish to again give thanks to Senators Kyl and Whitehouse, joined by 
Senators Mikulski, Blunt, Coons, Graham, Coats, and Blumenthal, who 
have come together with a compromise proposal after a series of good-
faith negotiations and, as a result, Senators Collins, Rockefeller, 
Feinstein, and I have made major and difficult compromises in our 
original bill in order to move the legislation forward, to get 
something started, to protect our cyber security.
  I think we now have a broad agreement on a bill containing those same 
cyber security standards that were in our original bill that resulted 
from a collaborative public-private sector process and negotiation. But 
now, instead of mandating them, we are going to create incentives for 
the private sector to opt into them. We are going to use carrots 
instead of sticks. We have added some compromises also from the 
original legislation to guarantee Members of the Senate and millions of 
people out in the country that when we act to share information from 
the private sector to the government, we are going to have due regard 
for the privacy of people's data in cyber space--personal information--
without compromising our national security at all.
  There are advocates on both sides of both the information-sharing 
provision and the critical cyber-standards provision that think we have 
gone too far, and some think we haven't gone far enough. But while 
advocates on the outside of the Senate can hold fast to their 
particular positions, legislators on the inside of the Senate need to 
take all of these deeply held views into account. Ultimately, our 
responsibility is to get something done to protect our security--it is 
our responsibility to pass a law--and we have done that here.
  I wish to first review some of the broad areas of agreement and then 
outline the differences that remain because I want my colleagues to 
understand how much progress has already been made. Sometimes the news 
stresses the differences between us.
  Let me start with title I of the bill, which is the one on critical 
infrastructure. I think there is a growing, broad agreement now that 
the private sector owners of critical infrastructure should work with 
the government to develop what somebody yesterday called the best cyber 
hygiene or standards of defense that are needed to safeguard their 
facilities and the rest of us.
  In the original bill we had the Department of Homeland Security 
playing the singular role for the government. We broaden that now in 
response to, particularly, recommendations from the Kyl-Whitehouse 
group, and we have created a new interagency council we call the 
national cyber security council, which will consist of the Department 
of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of 
Commerce, the FBI, and the Director of National Intelligence, as well 
as relevant primary regulators when that sector of cyber structure is 
put forth in the council.
  What do I mean by that? If they are dealing with the cyber security 
of the financial sector of our government, then on those standards we 
would expect the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Treasury 
Department, for instance, among others, to be seated at the table to 
come up with an agreement on those standards.
  We have also agreed that adoption of these practices will be 
voluntary and that there will be no duplication of existing regulations 
or any new regulatory authorities that will be added to law.
  We have also agreed that incentives need to be created--the carrots I 
spoke about, such as liability protection--to entice private sector 
owners to adopt these practices once they have been developed--totally 
voluntary. But I think if we build this right, they will come. Although 
it is not mandatory, we will set a standard, and private sector 
operators of critical infrastructure will want to meet that standard 
because they will want to act in the national interests to protect 
their customers, but also because when they do they will receive very 
valuable immunity from liability in the event of an attack or a theft.
  Look, I decided that we needed to make the system voluntary in order 
to get something passed this year. I think it has a good chance of 
working as a voluntary system. But if it doesn't, and the cyber threat 
grows as much as I think it will, then some future Congress is going to 
come along and make it mandatory.
  So there will be an incentive on both the public and private sector--
particularly the private sector--to make this voluntary system work. 
God forbid between now and then there is a major cyber attack against 
our country; Congress will come flying back and adopt mandatory 
regulations. That is not what we want to happen. This is the time for 
rational, thoughtful discussion and legislation that will begin a

[[Page S5702]]

process that will go on for years because the cyber threat is not going 
away.
  So that is title I. That is the compromise we offered on title I, 
which deals with cyber infrastructure. I go now to title VII. In 
between there are some very good titles, titles II through VI, but the 
good news is--maybe I should stress this--there seems to be broad 
bipartisan agreement on those titles.
  Title VII is the one on information sharing, and there is some 
disagreement on that. But we have come to agree that private sector 
companies must be able to share cyber-threat information with the 
government and each other, with protections against liability that will 
incentivize--really allow--that sharing; that this sharing must be 
instantaneous.
  In other words, to protect--to respond to concerns about private data 
being shared when a private sector operator of cyber security shares 
information with the government, we are requiring in this bill, the 
pending legislation, that the first point of contact for cyber sharing 
and reporting cyber attack is with a civilian agency--not a military or 
law enforcement agency or an intelligence agency but a civilian agency, 
such as the Department of Homeland Security or some other approved 
civilian exchange.
  Some people have worried that if we did that, it would delay the 
referral of that information to the law enforcement and intelligence 
and military parts of our government, almost as if when the information 
of a cyber attack is sent to the Department of Homeland Security, 
somebody is going to have to go find the Secretary of Homeland Security 
to make sure she sees it before it goes to the Department of Defense, 
FBI. The world we are in is very different from that. It has been 
explained to me and others who met with, particularly, General 
Alexander, the head of Cyber Command at the Department of Defense that 
everything travels instantaneously, at cyber speed. That means that 
according to preset programs, cyber attack, if this bill is passed, 
will automatically--notification of it--go to the Department of 
Homeland Security or a civilian exchange, and at the same instant it 
will go to the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the intelligence 
community.

  But when it first goes to the civilian exchange, there will be 
software in there to screen out--to prevent the possibility that any 
personal data--e-mails, private financial information--will not be sent 
to the law enforcement and defense branches of our government. That is 
another reason sharing will have to be instantaneous--that existing 
information-sharing relationships will continue undisturbed; that is, 
for instance, between the defense contractor and the Defense 
Department, and that there should be no stovepipes among government 
agencies. Agencies that need information should have access the instant 
it is provided to the government.
  I know some colleagues want more assurance that while a lead civilian 
agency will serve as the hub for immediate distribution of cyber-threat 
information, it will do so without slowing down DOD's and NSA's 
abilities to access and act on that information. I have just told my 
colleagues that would be the case. Others want to add further privacy 
protections. I do want to say in this regard that we have already 
significantly strengthened the privacy protections, thanks to a lot of 
good negotiation with a group of Senators--Senators Franken, Durbin, 
Coons, Wyden, and others--and a broad range of privacy and civil 
liberties groups ranging, really quite remarkably, from the left to 
right and in between, who seem generally pleased with what we have done 
to protect privacy under our legislation.
  Here is the good news: The people in charge of cyber security in our 
government say the privacy protections we have added in the underlying 
bill to the information-sharing section of this bill will not stop them 
for a millisecond from receiving the information they need and 
protecting our national security. So, to me, this is the Senate at its 
best.
  We are not there. My dream--because this is--we are legislating here. 
We are not in the midst of some traditional sort of government 
regulation controversy. We are legislating actually in the midst of a 
war because we are already being attacked every day over cyber space. 
We have been lucky that it hasn't been a major attack that has actually 
knocked out part of our cyber infrastructure, but that vulnerability is 
there.
  A few months ago there was a story in the Washington Post about a 
young man in a country far away that launched an attack against a small 
utility--I believe it was a water company--in Texas. He got into their 
system and actually had the ability to totally disrupt the water supply 
in that area of Texas. What the hacker did instead--and he just had a 
computer and was smart--what he did instead was post proof that he had 
broken into the industrial control system in that small utility in 
Texas just to show the vulnerability. In a sense, he might have been 
bragging he could do it, but it also was a warning to us. What if the 
next time that happens it is a larger utility or a group of smaller 
utilities around the country--maybe water, maybe electricity, maybe 
gas--and this time they are not just warning us or showing us our 
vulnerability, but they are actually going to disrupt the flow of 
electricity or water to people who depend on that? That is the kind of 
crisis we face and why it is so urgent that we deal with this.

  So let me come back to my dream. My goal here is that as we go on 
this week, we are able to submit a managers' amendment, but it is not 
just from the managers--Senators Collins, Rockefeller, Feinstein, and 
me--that we are joined by a much broader group and we form a broad 
bipartisan consensus to protect our country from a terrible danger that 
is real, urgent, and growing.
  I always like to think back at these moments--and I was thinking 
about it again in this case, and since I do not see anybody else on the 
floor, I will indulge myself and go back--to a hot July day in 
Philadelphia, over 225 years ago, when the U.S. Senate was created as 
part of the--I am glad to say, proud to say--Connecticut Compromise 
offered to the Constitutional Convention by two of Connecticut's 
delegates to that convention, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth. It 
passed by just a single vote, but it helped keep the convention 
together and to enable our new government, including our Congress, to 
take shape because the Connecticut Compromise guaranteed the small 
States that their interests would be protected--small-population 
States--in the Senate because every State, no matter how big or small 
its population, would have two Senators, and it guaranteed the larger 
States that they would have a greater say in the House of 
Representatives, whose membership would be reflected, as it still is 
today, by population. Not everyone got everything they wanted that day, 
but they found a common ground that allowed them to go forward and 
finish writing our Constitution. That is the kind of position we are in 
today.
  Shortly after the Connecticut Compromise was adopted at the 
Constitutional Convention, James Madison, as you know, Mr. President, 
often referred to as the father of the Constitution, wrote--and I am 
paraphrasing a little bit here--``the nature of the senatorial trust'' 
would allow it to proceed with ``coolness'' and ``wisdom.'' I think 
these negotiations on the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 show thus far that 
we have the ability to put ideological rigidity, partisanship, and 
politics aside when our security is at risk and move beyond gridlock 
and fulfill our Founders' vision of what this body can do when it comes 
to debating the great challenges of our time, with ``coolness'' and 
``wisdom,'' as Madison said.
  So over the next couple of days, let's debate all the relevant and 
germane amendments. Let's start voting as soon as we can on them. But 
then, for the good of the country, let's each compromise some, 
acknowledging that none of us can get everything we want and we cannot 
afford to insist on everything we want because if we do, nothing will 
happen and our country will remain vulnerable to cyber attack until the 
next opportunity Congress has--which I would guess will be sometime as 
next year goes on--to deal with this challenge. We cannot wait. We 
simply cannot wait. I know we can do this. I urge my colleagues, 
therefore, to come to the floor. I urge the leaders of

[[Page S5703]]

both parties to agree that the amendments submitted should be germane 
and relevant and that we can and will finish our work on this 
legislation this week.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Cotton Trust Fund/AGOA

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a 
colloquy with the majority leader, Senator Reid, and the distinguished 
chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, let me begin by clearly stating I 
understand the majority leader later today will issue a unanimous 
consent request to move forward on the AGOA, the African Growth and 
Opportunity Act trade bill, and the Burma sanctions package as well as 
CAFTA-DR. Those are all efforts I supported as a member of the Finance 
Committee and voted for and ultimately want to see passed.
  I believe trade is an effective development tool and that by 
investing in people we can make a long-term and sustainable change in 
developing countries. But at the same time, I am very concerned about 
our failure to reauthorize the cotton and wool trust funds which are 
crucial to sustaining jobs in the United States and jobs in my State of 
New Jersey.
  For some time now I have been working tirelessly to reach an 
agreeable resolution on the issue, one that enables us to pass AGOA and 
CAFTA-DR and Burma sanctions while simultaneously protecting dwindling 
apparel sector jobs in the United States, hundreds in my home State, 
thousands across the country, and ensuring that our trade is not just 
free but is also fair.
  That is not the case right now. So I come to the floor to enter into 
a colloquy with the distinguished majority leader and the chairman of 
the Finance Committee to ask for their help and commitment to 
addressing this domestic jobs issue, the cotton and wool trust funds 
this year, so we can seek to move this legislation and do right by 
American workers as we are trying to also help African workers.
  I yield to the distinguished majority leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I appreciate very much the Senator from New 
Jersey coming to the floor to discuss this issue. As my friend from New 
Jersey knows, as the chairman of the Finance Committee knows, I support 
the wool and cotton trust funds. That is very clear in the record of 
this body for what I believe was wrong with the Olympic uniforms. It is 
such a shame our athletes over there are wearing clothes made in China. 
I think that is too bad. I support the wool and cotton trust fund. I 
support the citrus trust fund. There are only three of them. I support 
all of them. I agree with my friend from New Jersey that we need to 
find a way to move these forward and ensure that American manufacturers 
are placed on equal footing with foreign manufacturers so there is an 
easier place for people to go if they want products made in the United 
States.
  I am happy to work with Senator Menendez and Chairman Baucus to find 
a vehicle to ensure that these trust funds and these American jobs are 
a priority that is addressed this year. So my friend has a commitment 
that I will do everything within my abilities to make sure we have an 
agreement on extending these very important trust funds this year.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I strongly endorse the suggestions made by 
the majority leader as well as by the Senator from New Jersey and also 
thank the Senator from New Jersey for pushing these measures so 
aggressively, the cotton trust fund and wool, and also, to some degree, 
the citrus which is part of this.
  I support these provisions. I support the cotton trust fund, support 
it strongly. I am working diligently to try to find the right vehicles 
so we can get this passed--the cotton trust fund passed this year. I 
deeply appreciate the strong passion on this by Senator Menendez. He 
has come to me many times in looking for an opportunity to pass this.
  I deeply appreciate that. This place works on basic comity. Sometimes 
the pathways to get to a result are not well known and difficult to 
see, initially. But I am quite confident we are going to find a way to 
get this cotton trust fund passed this year. The Senator has my support 
to make that happen.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, before I yield to my friend from New Jersey, 
I wish to also state on the record that no one is a better advocate for 
an issue they believe in than Senator Menendez from New Jersey. This is 
an issue he has spoken loudly and clearly about. So I reiterate what I 
said: I feel very compelled to do something to satisfy my friend from 
New Jersey on such a worthy cause.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I wish to thank and appreciate the 
majority leader's and the chairman's ongoing commitment to this issue. 
I look forward to continuing to work with them on the issue to protect 
American workers and American manufacturers from the negative effect of 
certain trade policies and tariffs that threaten their livelihood.
  I appreciate them both coming to the floor and for their commitment. 
I just wish to take a minute or two for those who have asked me--I have 
had a whole host of our colleagues who have come and said to me: What 
are you trying to achieve? So we can move quickly to try to achieve the 
passage of AGOA and CAFTA-DR, Burma sanctions, all which I support.
  I know colleagues, such as Congressman Rangel, who was the original 
author of AGOA, has called, among many others. You know, very simply, 
pursuant to the passage of NAFTA and CAFTA and AGOA and other trade 
preference programs, Congress has eliminated duties on, for example, 
imported shirts from other countries. In some cases such as AGOA, it 
has also allowed the use of third-country fabrics to make those 
imported shirts.
  Our tariff policy, however, has not changed. While foreign-made dress 
shirts are entering the United States duty free, we are charging 
American manufacturers a duty as high as 13\1/2\ percent on cotton 
shirting fabric. So not surprisingly, this made-in-America tax resulted 
in American manufacturers moving production offshore where shirting 
fabric is not subject to those high duties and where the finished 
product can come back to the United States duty free.
  Six years ago, Congress recognized that, in fact, is simply unfair. 
Why should an American manufacturer have to pay a duty when those 
abroad using the same fabric can send it to the United States without 
any duty? They created the cotton trust fund to provide a combination 
of duty reductions and duty refunds to shirt manufacturers that 
continue manufacturing in the United States.
  That program expired in 2009. Since then, these businesses have 
suffered and dwindled. I am just simply trying, as we promote jobs in 
Africa and in the Caribbean, to promote jobs in the United States. I 
want the women in the factories I have visited--this is the essence of 
how they sustain their families--to be able to continue to have those 
jobs.
  That is why I appreciate the effort by the chairman and by the 
majority leader to try to get us to that point, so we can have free 
trade, but it also has to be fair to Americans who are here and can 
compete. They cannot compete when they have to pay a 13\1/2\-percent 
tax and people sending it from all over the world have to pay nothing. 
That is the essence of what I am trying to accomplish.
  I will not object later today when the majority leader proposes his 
unanimous consent request and will support the effort to move those 
trade bills.
  Mr. CARDIN. Would the Senator yield.
  Let me thank Senator Menendez for his leadership on this issue. He 
has been very articulate about preserving jobs and creating jobs in New 
Jersey and in America.
  I thank him for once again standing for American workers. I thank 
Senator

[[Page S5704]]

Reid, the majority leader, for his commitment to bring up the trust 
fund and the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus, I thank 
him for his leadership.
  Senator Menendez has laid out the issue very clearly. This is an 
averted tariff. It works against American workers. Cotton, mainly on 
shirts but other commodities, such as wool and suits--as the Senator 
pointed out, if someone manufactures the suit or the shirt out of 
America and imports it into America, costing us jobs, they pay less 
tariff than if they are an American manufacturer that imports the 
product to manufacture the product in America. They pay a heavier 
tariff, which costs us jobs, which makes no sense whatsoever.
  I thank Senator Menendez for his leadership. I thank Senator Reid and 
Senator Baucus for understanding this and giving us an opportunity 
before this expires on the wool trust fund. It is making sure it works 
effectively. I took the floor last week to talk about English-American 
Tailoring, located in Westminster, MD. There are 380 union jobs in 
Westminster, MD. I showed a photograph of seamstresses making suits in 
America. I think most people thought that photo was taken decades ago, 
but it was taken this month. This is about how we can preserve jobs in 
America. They are making the best suits in the world. They are 
exporting their suits to other countries, but they can't do it unless 
we have a level playing field.
  The leadership of the Senator from New Jersey on bringing to the 
attention of the American people the need to extend and make effective 
the cotton and wool trust fund is critically important to preserving 
jobs in Maryland, New Jersey, and in our Nation.
  Again, I thank Senator Menendez, on behalf of American workers, for 
his leadership on this issue.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I thank my colleague.
  Mr. REID. Will my friend yield to me for 1 minute?
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Yes.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for 
debate on S. 3414, the cyber security bill, be extended until 5 p.m. 
and at that time I be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from 
Maryland, a fellow member of the Finance Committee. Senator Cardin has 
been a passionate voice on this as well. I am thrilled to have him as 
an ally in this endeavor.
  All we want is for Americans to stay employed. They can compete with 
anybody in the world but not when they have to pay a tariff or tax that 
nobody else has to pay who sends the same product back into the United 
States. That is our goal. I appreciate his work, his passion, and his 
commitment. I look forward to working with the majority leader and the 
chairman of the Finance Committee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, if I may have a few moments, the Senate 
is not in a quorum call, is it?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no quorum call.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Very briefly, Mr. President, I have just received a 
copy of a letter that has been sent this morning to the majority 
leader, Senator Reid, and the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, 
from GEN Keith Alexander of the United States Army, Director of the 
National Security Agency and Chief of Cyber Command at the Department 
of Defense. He is a distinguished and honored leader of our military, 
one of the people who has the greatest single responsibility for 
protecting our security, both in terms of the extraordinary 
capabilities the National Security Agency has but now increasingly for 
the defense of our cyber system.
  This is a career military officer, not a politician. He is somebody 
who has a mission, and it is from that sense of responsibility that 
General Alexander has written to Senator Reid and Senator McConnell. He 
writes--and I will ask to have it printed in the Record--to express his 
``strong support for passage of a comprehensive bipartisan cyber 
security bill by the Senate this week.'' Why? I continue to quote:

       The cyber threat facing the Nation is real and demands 
     immediate action. The time to act is now; we simply cannot 
     afford further delay.

  He adds:

       Moreover, to be most effective in protecting against this 
     threat to our national security, cyber security legislation 
     should address both information sharing and core critical 
     infrastructure hardening.

  Then he explains both of those in very compelling language. He also 
says:

       Finally, any legislation needs to recognize that cyber 
     security is a team sport. No single public or private entity 
     has all of the required authorities, resources, and 
     capabilities. Within the federal government, the Department 
     of Defense and the Intelligence Community are now closely 
     partnered with the Department of Homeland Security and the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation. The benefits of this 
     partnership are perhaps best evidenced by the Managed 
     Security Service (MSS) program, which affords protection to 
     certain government components and defense companies. The 
     legislation will help enable us to make these same 
     protections available widely to the private sector.

  I cannot thank General Alexander enough. He ends by saying this:

       The President and the Congress have rightly made cyber 
     security a national priority. We need to move forward on 
     comprehensive legislation now.

  He urged Senators Reid and McConnell ``to work together to get it 
passed.''
  I ask unanimous consent that this very compelling letter from GEN 
Keith Alexander be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                         National Security Agency,


                                     Central Security Service,

                                         Fort George G. Meade, MD.
     Hon. Harry Reid,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate, The Capitol, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Reid: I am writing to express my strong 
     support for passage of a comprehensive bipartisan cyber 
     security bill by the Senate this week. The cyber threat 
     facing the Nation is real and demands immediate action. The 
     time to act is now; we simply cannot afford further delay. 
     Moreover, to be most effective in protecting against this 
     threat to our national security, cyber security legislation 
     should address both information sharing and core critical 
     infrastructure hardening.
        Both the government and the private sector have unique 
     insights into the cyber threat facing our Nation today. 
     Sharing these insights will enhance our mutual understanding 
     of the threat and enable the operational collaboration that 
     is needed to identify cyber threat indicators and mitigate 
     them. It is important that any legislation establish a clear 
     framework for such sharing, with robust safeguards for the 
     privacy and civil liberties of our citizens. The American 
     people must have confidence that threat information is being 
     shared appropriately and in the most transparent way 
     possible. This is why I support information to be shared 
     through a civilian entity, with real-time, rule-based sharing 
     of cyber security threat indicators with all relevant federal 
     partners.
        Information sharing alone, however, is insufficient to 
     address the vulnerabilities to the Nation's core critical 
     infrastructure. Comprehensive cyber security legislation also 
     needs to ensure that this infrastructure is sufficiently 
     hardened and resilient, as it is the storehouse of much of 
     our economic prosperity. And, our national security depends 
     on it. We face sophisticated, well-resourced adversaries who 
     understand this. Key to addressing this peril is the adoption 
     of minimum security requirements to harden these networks, 
     dissuading adversaries and making it more difficult for them 
     to conduct a successful cyber penetration. It is important 
     that these requirements be collaboratively developed with 
     industry and not be too burdensome. While I believe this can 
     be done, I also believe that industry will require some form 
     of incentives to make this happen.
        Finally, any legislation needs to recognize that cyber 
     security is a team sport. No single public or private entity 
     has all of the required authorities, resources, and 
     capabilities. Within the federal government, the Department 
     of Defense and the Intelligence Community are now closely 
     partnered with the Department of Homeland Security and the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation. The benefits of this 
     partnership are perhaps best evidenced by the Managed 
     Security Service (MSS) program, which affords protections to 
     certain government components and defense companies. The 
     legislation will help enable us to make these same 
     protections available widely to the private sector.
        The President and the Congress have rightly made cyber 
     security a national priority. We need to move forward on 
     comprehensive legislation now. I urge you to work together to 
     get it passed.

                                           Keith B. Alexander,

                                               General, U.S. Army,
                                                    Director, NSA.

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

[[Page S5705]]



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