[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 117 (Thursday, August 2, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5927-S5930]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             Cyber Security

  Mr. BLUNT. I rise today on two topics. One, I want to say that while 
I don't agree with everything my good friend from Rhode Island just 
said about the issue he was talking about, the two of us have worked 
all this year to try to bring people together on the issue we failed to 
deal with today on cyber security.
  Senator Whitehouse and I, along with Senators Kyl and Mikulski, at 
the very first of the year began to create opportunities for Senators 
to sit down together and talk about the threat we face and talk about 
what we need to do to deal with it. I am convinced and I believe all 
the people I just mentioned are equally convinced that two things will 
happen: No. 1, we will eventually have a cyber attack on our country 
that will be successful in some way that many Americans will understand 
the danger we face from the cyber threat and, No. 2, that we will 
eventually pass a bill. My strong belief is that will be a better bill 
if we pass it before that event rather than after that event.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, may I simply interject, with the 
Senator's permission, to say how much of a pleasure it has been to work 
with him on this issue and to say that I think a great number of 
Senators on both sides of the aisle have worked in very good faith to 
get to a point where we can pass a bill. And I pledge to him, despite 
the unfortunate outcome of today's cloture vote, that I am committed to 
continuing to work with him, Senator Kyl, Senator Graham, Senator 
McCain, and others--I guess Senator Chambliss--on the other side of the 
aisle so we can indeed take the necessary steps to protect our Nation 
from this threat. But I say this with a strong consciousness of the 
very good will and the very hard work Senator Blunt put into this 
effort and with great appreciation to him personally.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend from Rhode Island, and I think we can 
move forward. I think there is good faith.
  As I said, we started--the four of us--beginning to get people 
together. That group was quickly joined by Senators Collins and 
Lieberman, so then six of us began to get people together. There were 
any number of meetings this week with about two dozen Senators, about 
equally divided between both parties, trying to find a way forward. I 
didn't think we found that in the cloture motion today. The motion 
said: Here is how we are going to proceed to finish the bill, and so we 
didn't move forward today. But I hope we can continue to work with 
Senator Reid and others to create the sense that Senator Whitehouse 
just expressed, that there is great bipartisan effort being made to 
find a solution that not only would pass a Senate bill but would wind 
up with a bill on the President's desk sometime this year.
  You don't have to look very far to find people who will say that the 
greatest threat we face at this moment is the threat of some kind of 
cyber attack. At the highest levels of our military structure, of our 
intelligence structure, they quickly come to that conclusion. And 
leaving here for the work period in August that Congress has had since 
the beginning of Congresses without having this done on the Senate side 
is disappointing to me.
  On the other hand, there wouldn't have been a bill even if we had 
passed a bill today because we have to work with the House to have a 
bill that winds up with a piece of paper on the President's desk--a 
relatively small stack of paper--that he can sign and that then becomes 
the law that allows us to either minimize or hopefully avoid the 
current certainty that someone will eventually begin to get to our 
critical infrastructure in a way that makes it hard for the country to 
get water, to get electricity, to communicate, or to address the 
financial network. You know, 3 or 4 days anywhere in the country where 
the electricity is out, suddenly you begin to see all of the things 
that are dependent on just the electrical grid alone.
  Hopefully we can do this. I know work is being done. I will be 
involved in some of it later today. As I said, I am disappointed we 
didn't get this done, but it has to be done. We can't leave here this 
year with the House saying ``we passed a bill'' and the Senate saying 
either ``we didn't pass a bill because one side didn't want to work 
with the other'' or ``we passed a bill, but the House wouldn't agree to 
it.'' This is not a problem that we just need to have a political 
answer to; this is a problem we need to have a real answer to.

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