[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15203-15204]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF BUSINESS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the bill that was, and is, most important to 
the intelligence community and to the Pentagon was just killed. I am 
speaking of the cyber security bill.

[[Page 15204]]

  I have had a number of people come to me during the day and say: Are 
you going to allow relevant amendments on this? I said: Sure. They 
said: How about five? I said: Fine. But whatever we do on this bill, it 
is not enough for the Chamber of Commerce. It is not enough.
  So everyone should understand, cyber security is dead for this 
Congress. What an unfortunate thing. But that is the way it is.
  I filed cloture on the Sportsmen's bill yesterday. Unless we can 
agree to a limited number of amendments, we will have a cloture vote on 
the bill early tomorrow morning, probably around 9 o'clock. If we get 
cloture, there will be a potential 30 hours of debate under the rules, 
as we all know too well. I have been told someone on the other side 
also plans to make a Budget Act point of order against the Sportsmen's 
bill.
  We have Members representing the States of New York and New Jersey 
who are going to be in their States tomorrow because of the tremendous 
damage caused by Sandy, but they will be back here tomorrow evening and 
we will have a vote in the morning on cloture on the Sportsmen's bill, 
and then we could have votes later tomorrow or on Friday.
  On DOD authorization--Senator Levin is here, Senator McCain was here 
earlier. I have had conversations with Senator Levin. I haven't spoken 
to Senator McCain this week but have spoken to him previously on a 
number of occasions. This is a bill we should get done. It is an 
important piece of legislation. I know we have the Defense 
appropriations bill at a later time, but this is something we have to 
do now because it changes policy toward our fighting men and women 
around the world. It does a lot of good for them. We need to get this 
bill done, I repeat.
  Probably what we are going to do is move to the bill. I don't know 
why in the world we have to file cloture on a motion to proceed to it. 
I don't quite understand that. But I haven't understood that about 
almost 400 times the last few years. So what we are going to do, and 
everyone should understand--listen to this, everybody--we are going to 
move to the bill. If we get permission to go to the bill, we will have 
an open amendment process on this bill. I have been assured by Senator 
Levin and Senator McCain, through Senator Levin, that on all these 
nonrelevant, vexatious amendments they will help us table them or 
dispose of them in some appropriate manner. And that is how we should 
legislate around here.
  I hope Senator McCain, after speaking to Senator Levin, will agree to 
move forward on this bill. And that is my proposal. I hope it is 
something that everyone would agree to. We will start legislating on 
this bill the day we get back after the Thanksgiving recess.
  Mr. CARPER. Would the majority leader yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. Yes.
  Mr. CARPER. I am pleased to hear the leader say he would be most 
willing to allow the minority to offer five relevant, germane 
amendments to the cyber security legislation. Literally within the last 
30 minutes we have had on the floor both the leader saying this, and I 
have heard him saying it before, that a limited number of relevant 
amendments--Senator McCain came to the floor, who, as you know, has not 
been anxious to support the bipartisan legislation developed by 
Senators Lieberman and Collins and others--but we have had one of the 
antagonists to that legislation and the majority leader both saying 
that five relevant and germane amendments would be allowed for the 
minority to offer, so we could at least take up the bill, debate the 
bill. At the end of the day, we still need 60 votes to get the bill off 
the floor.
  I have heard so many of my colleagues say it is not a matter of if 
but it is when, and I don't want us to leave and go home for 
Thanksgiving with this hanging, if we could actually do something 
relevant.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, just so everyone listening to my friend 
understands--and he also has worked so hard on the bill that was just 
killed--when he says it is not a question of if, it is when, he is not 
talking about passing this bill, he is talking about a cyber attack, a 
gargantuan cyber attack on our country.
  Here we are in this beautiful Capitol building today, and all around 
America we have government officials and private sector officials who 
are trying to thwart the people trying to destroy businesses and parts 
of our country's infrastructure.
  As I have said here so many different times--and Senator Lieberman 
and Senator Feinstein, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee are 
on the floor--the record is here. We have told everybody for months and 
months that something is going to happen. And we have laid the 
groundwork, I am sorry to say, to blame you guys for not doing 
something to take care of this issue. It is a big issue and it is an 
important issue for our country. This should have nothing to do with 
partisan politics. And why the Chamber of Commerce is doing what they 
are doing is beyond my ability to comprehend.
  I 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. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________