[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12955-12975]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           VETERANS JOBS CORPS ACT OF 2012--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 476, 
which is the Veterans Jobs Corps Act, sponsored by Senator Nelson of 
Florida.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 476, S. 3457, a bill to 
     require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a 
     veterans jobs corps, and for other purposes.

  Mr. REID. Madam President, the first hour will be equally divided and 
controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the 
Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the 
final half.


                             Cyber Security

  Yesterday I filed cloture on the cyber security bill. As a result, 
the filing deadline for first-degree amendments is 1 p.m. today. We 
will let the Senate know about votes scheduled. We are trying to do one 
on Burma and the African trade bill that we have wanted to do for a 
long time, but Republicans have held it up to this point. But we will 
see what we can do to move forward on that.
  Madam President, last week GEN Keith Alexander, commander of the U.S. 
Cyber Command, was asked to rate how prepared America was to face a 
cyber terrorist attack on the scale of 1 to 10. Here is what he said: 
``From my perspective I'd say around a 3.''
  Keep in mind, 1 is totally unprepared, 10 is totally prepared. Three 
is what he said. One of the country's top national security experts 
gave us 3 out of 10, a failing grade by any standard.
  He went to say that the type of cyber attacks that could black out 
the United States for weeks or months are up seventeenfold in the last 
3 years. The Nation's top security experts have said a cyber 9/11 is 
imminent. They say frailties in our defenses against these attacks are 
most urgent. They are a threat to our national security. Nothing is 
more important.
  So it was with disappointment last night that I filed cloture on 
legislation to reinforce our defenses against these malicious 
attackers. Some are countries, some are organizations, some are 
individuals. National security experts have been plain about the urgent 
need to act. They say the question is not whether to act but whether we 
will act in time.
  One need only look at the headlines in papers all over America 
today--all over the world today. As we speak, 600 million people in 
India are without electricity. It is not believed there was any 
terrorism involved. It is believed it relates to the unusual weather, 
probably based, many experts say, on global warming. They have never 
had such heat in India, which has put a tremendous burden on their 
fragile power system.
  This legislation we are trying to finish has been worked on for 
years--years--not this Congress but going into last Congress. I was 
pleased to hear last week that many of my colleagues were working on 
thoughtful amendments to improve and strengthen this measure in spite 
of the untoward pressure by the Chamber of Commerce to kill this 
legislation. Senators on both sides have worked hard to address every 
concern raised by the private sector about this legislation. Senators 
Lieberman and Collins have been exemplary. The bill that is before this 
body now is not nearly as strong as I would like, but that is what 
compromise is all about. I accept what they believed they had to do.
  I expected a healthy debate on this important issue. I also expected 
to process many relevant amendments. Unfortunately, that was not good 
enough for a few of my Republican colleagues. Instead of substantive 
amendments that deal with our Nation's cyber security, they are 
insisting on political show votes. Instead of substantive amendments 
that deal with our Nation's cyber security, they are looking at all 
kinds of other things. I had thought they were going to be serious 
about this, but they are not. The threat is clear, and protecting the 
computer networks that control our electric grids, water supplies, and 
financial systems should be above political wrangling. So I was doubly 
disappointed to watch a bipartisan process derailed by ideological 
attacks--for example, on a woman's right to choose her health care 
generally.
  As 47 million Americans were set to gain access to preventive 
services with no out-of-pocket costs, Republicans insisted once again 
on a vote to repeal these benefits. They want to roll back the clock to 
the days when insurance companies could discriminate against women. 
Why? Because they were women. They had a preexisting disability--their 
gender.
  To make matters worse they are willing to kill a bill that will 
protect our Nation from cyber terrorism in the process. But this is not 
a new tactic. You may remember, as we all do--and I was reminded of 
that yesterday by a question that was asked of me by the distinguished 
assistant leader, Senator Durbin, that reminded the entire Senate that 
on a surface transportation bill that put 3 million jobs at risk,

[[Page 12956]]

their first amendment was by Senator Blunt on women's access to 
contraception.
  Still, I admit I was surprised that Senator McConnell would so 
brazenly drag partisan politics into a debate over a measure crucial to 
national security. It is today when the health care bill that we passed 
designates women will no longer be second-class citizens in relation to 
health care. So I cannot imagine a more untimely attack on women than 
yesterday.
  Yesterday Senator McConnell and I received a letter from General 
Alexander, who runs the National Security Agency--he is one of the top 
leaders there--urging us to move more quickly. Here is what he wrote, 
partially:

       The cyber threat facing the nation is real and demands 
     immediate action. The time to act is now; we simply cannot 
     afford further delay. We need to move forward on 
     comprehensive legislation now. I urge you to work together to 
     get it passed.

  What more do we need? What more does the Chamber of Commerce need so 
that they can release my Republican colleagues? I share General 
Alexander's concern.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the majority leader yield for a question.
  Mr. REID. I will be happy to.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would like to ask the majority leader if he is aware of 
the statement we had on the floor of the Senate by Senator Whitehouse, 
who has been one of the leaders in putting together the cyber security 
bill relative to an incident at the Chamber of Commerce? I would like 
to read it, if I may, very briefly. And I quote Senator Whitehouse from 
page S5720 of the July 31 Congressional Record:

       Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been the completely 
     unwitting victim of a long-term and extensive cyber 
     intrusion. Just last year the Wall Street Journal reported 
     that a group of hackers in China breached the computer 
     defenses of the U.S. Chamber, gained access to everything 
     stored in its systems, including information about 3 million 
     members, and they remained on the U.S. Chamber's network for 
     at least 6 months and possibly more than a year. The Chamber 
     only learned of the break-in when the FBI told the group that 
     servers in China were stealing their information.
       Even after the Chamber was notified and increased its cyber 
     security, the article stated that the Chamber continued to 
     experience suspicious activity, including a ``thermostat at a 
     townhouse the Chamber owns on Capitol Hill . . . [that 
     communicated] with an Internet address in China . . . and . . 
     . a printer used by the Chamber executives spontaneously . . 
     . printing pages with Chinese characters.

  As Senator Whitehouse has said:

       These are the people we are supposed to listen to about 
     cyber security.

  Can I ask the Senator from Nevada if he was aware that the chamber 
opposition to the cyber security bill certainly belies the fact that 
they have been hacked by the Chinese themselves, and they didn't even 
know it until the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported it?
  Mr. REID. Madam President, in answer to my friend, we are living in a 
modern world. A thermostat--isn't that what the Senator just said?
  Mr. DURBIN. That is right.
  Mr. REID. Is the connectivity to what China wants to get from the 
Chamber of Commerce. Remember, that is only one way they get this 
information. But the numerous instruments we carry around--BlackBerrys, 
iPhones, all these kinds of things, instruments we have at home--every 
one of those is a vehicle to find out what is going on in my life, your 
life, the life of the Chamber of Commerce. I cannot imagine how my 
Republican friends can follow this lead. I don't know who. We have had 
Republican leaders in the past, on security--they have all said do 
something about this.
  I would love to have a bipartisan bill to work through this with some 
amendments. I do not expect anyone to think the bill Senator Lieberman 
and Senator Collins did is perfect. But it is a lot better than 
nothing. I hope people, when we vote on this tomorrow, will invoke 
cloture and pass their bill.
  I had no choice but to file cloture. I am going to continue to work 
with all Senators to find out if we can reach a compromise.
  I wish I had better news. Ignorance is bliss. I wish I did not know 
as much. I wish the briefings I had down in the classified area of the 
Capitol--a lot of that information is kind of scary. It is scary that 
we are not doing something about this bill.
  Would the Chair announce the business of the day?


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader's time is 
reserved.


                           Order of Business

  Under the previous order, the following hour will be equally divided 
and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with 
Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the 
final half.
  The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, while the majority whip is on the 
floor, I want to pay him a compliment about some remarks I am going to 
make this morning. A group of 6 people in the Senate, three Republicans 
and three Democrats, about a year and half ago began getting together 
to deal with our fiscal problems in this country, both entitlements as 
well as our tax system as well as spending. I commend him for his work 
on that because I am going to talk exactly about what this Senate and 
this Congress has to do in the months ahead to deal with the fiscal 
cliff we are about to go over, but I want to acknowledge the fact that 
many of us, most importantly the distinguished majority whip, have been 
working on solutions that we are going to have to take if we are going 
to save the Republic and the economy.
  I wanted to pass that on to the distinguished majority whip.
  In my State of Georgia, the most recent report on unemployment posted 
our unemployment rate at 9 percent. In our State we advertise 
foreclosures every Friday and leading up to the first Tuesday. We set a 
record in the month of July on the number of foreclosures being 
advertised.
  Yesterday in my office I had a meeting with the President of 
Lockheed. They are headquartered in Fort Worth, but they have one of 
their largest manufacturing facilities in Marietta, GA. They are going 
to have to send out their notice of potential layoffs that will take 
place because of sequestration. We just got the second quarter GDP 
report that said we are still slowing down and going down to 1.5 
percent from a previous quarter of 2 percent. All indicators are that 
we are heading to a second bump in our economy, and what has been a 
very protracted and weak recovery is beginning to fail, and we are 
looking at a fiscal problem that is going to affect this country for 
decades to come.
  I encourage my colleagues in the Senate to recognize the clock is 
running and time is running out. We can no longer postpone doing those 
things we must do as a Congress to save the Republic and save our 
economy and begin producing jobs in this country. The most important 
thing our people need is certainty. They need certainty in regulation, 
and they need certainty in tax policy. The American people need to know 
we are going to do what we have to do to save this Republic and to save 
this economy. For the few minutes I have this morning, I wish to talk 
about that. All the solutions are on the table. The problem is that 
none of us seems willing to take them off the table and put them on the 
floor and deal with it.
  Let's talk about spending. Our deficit has been announced for this 
particular fiscal year to be $1.2 trillion, $100 billion less than the 
total spending of the U.S. Government. We have to cut discretionary 
spending. We can't totally balance our books by cutting discretionary 
spending. We have entitlements. Our entitlements are growing because of 
what? Our economy. Why are food stamps up from $35 billion to $87 
billion? Because a lot people are hungry and a lot of people are out of 
work. Why are AFDC and many other programs rising rapidly? It is due to 
the economy. If we can deal with the spending and if we can deal with 
entitlements, then we can begin to bring back certainty and our economy 
will come back and our jobs will come back and there will be less 
pressure on the entitlement programs.
  We are going to have to also recognize that ``entitlements'' is not 
the

[[Page 12957]]

right word for programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Those are 
contracts with the American people. I pay 6.2 percent of my income--the 
President does as well--to the payroll tax for my Social Security. I 
paid 1.35 percent for my entire life to Medicare. That is a contract 
with my government. We have to fix those programs.
  Social Security is easy. Social Security is fixable by moving the 
eligibility date to the outyears. For my grandchildren, eight of whom 
are under 8 years old, that ought to be 69 or 70 years old before they 
become eligible. We don't need to cut their benefit or raise their tax, 
but we need to actuarially put out their eligibility. That is what 
Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did in 1983 to save Social Security until 
the current pressure it is under right now.
  Medicare is the tough animal to deal with. We are going to have to 
recognize that we have to get out of the fee-for-service business and 
then do a premium support business. That way, we can quantify premium 
support and know how much we are spending, and the American people have 
the choice of buying the insurance and the coverage for Medicare that 
they want. It ought to be means tested. We ought to make sure that 
those who can afford more insurance, like myself, have less support and 
those who are in need have more support. But it should be quantified in 
terms of support for premiums, not a fee-for-service reimbursement 
system.
  In terms of our revenues, everybody always wants to talk about taxes. 
Last week we had a debate that was meaningless and worthless over 
political positions of two political parties on tax systems. We need to 
look at Bowles-Simpson. We need to clean up our Tax Code. We need to 
use the tax expenditures that we get as income by reducing them and 
waiving them. We need to use that income to reduce the rates on 
corporate taxes and all the marginal rates of taxation so we can 
encourage people to spend their money, invest their money, and make our 
Tax Code simple. We don't need to raise taxes, we need to raise their 
attitude. We need to improve the plight the American taxpayers have 
today by giving them certainty and a tax code that is clean, a tax code 
that is fair, and a tax code that produces jobs, revenues, and growth.
  My message this morning is this: If we go up to probably Friday when 
we go home for the month of August and we come back in September for 60 
days and wait until the election, we are putting off dealing with 
issues that affect our economy, affect our people, and affect our 
future. I, for one, stand ready the minute the leaders are ready to put 
these issues on the floor, and let's vote on them. Let's deal with the 
future of the American people, their taxes, their entitlements, and the 
guarantees we made to them on Social Security and Medicare. Let's deal 
with our responsibility. Let's not sequester spending, let's cut where 
we should cut and let's add money where we should add money. Let's run 
this country like a business and not like a political action committee.
  I yield to the Republican leader.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican is recognized.


                           Defense Sequester

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday I came to the floor to draw 
attention to the administration's transparent attempts to conceal the 
impact of defense cuts President Obama demanded as part of last year's 
debt-ceiling deal. I was referring, of course, to the administration's 
Monday notification to businesses that work with the government that 
they are under no obligation to warn employees who might lose their 
jobs as a result of these cuts. Incredibly, the administration's 
argument was that they don't expect the cuts to happen even though the 
President had not done a thing to prevent them and even though Congress 
had to pass a law requiring the administration to tell us what the cuts 
would look like.
  So let's be clear. The administration officials who sent out this 
notification instructing businesses to keep quiet about these cuts know 
just as well as I do that the cuts are coming unless Senate Democrats 
act or the President of the United States finally decides to come up 
with a credible plan to replace them.
  The only reason the administration sent out this guidance to 
employers earlier this week was to keep people in the dark about the 
impact these defense cuts will have until, of course, after the 
election. So the White House is clearly trying to hide the ball from 
all of us. The clearest proof of that is the fact that no one even 
denied it after I noted it here just yesterday. But if we did need 
further proof, we actually got it yesterday when the Obama 
administration's Office of Management and Budget issued guidance of its 
own to departments and agencies telling folks they should prepare for 
the cuts.
  So let's get this straight. Government workers should prepare for 
cuts, but private businesses and their employers should not. Not a week 
seems to pass that we don't see more evidence of the President's 
absolute contempt for the private sector, and here is the latest. The 
Federal Government is told to prepare for cuts, and yet the private 
sector businesses are specifically told it would be ``inappropriate'' 
to tell people they could lose their jobs. The cuts to the Defense 
Department under sequester are the law of the land, and until Congress 
changes that fact they are totally foreseeable.
  Yesterday the Director of OMB exempted appropriations for military 
personnel from the sequester, providing even more certainty that the 
cuts to defense will fall upon training, maintenance, and weapons 
procurement and development. So the fact is that private businesses 
have a higher degree of certainty that their workforces will be hit. 
Yet here is the administration's message: If you are in the public 
sector, prepare for cuts. If you are in the private sector, don't even 
warn your employees that their jobs actually may be on the line.
  What a perfect summary of this administration's approach to the 
economy and jobs over the past 3\1/2\ years. Private businesses didn't 
earn their success; somebody else made that happen. Now the President 
says: If you work hard in the private sector, you don't even deserve to 
know if your job is on the chopping block. The private sector is doing 
just fine; it is the government that needs help. That is the message of 
this administration.
  Just as disturbing is what this says about the administration's 
approach to our national defense. The President's own Defense Secretary 
has said these cuts would hollow out our Armed Forces. Yet the 
President has not said a word about how he plans to responsibly replace 
them or, if he accepts a weakened national defense, how he will carry 
them out. Congress had to actually pass a law forcing him to make these 
plans clear to everybody. Now, he hasn't signed the bill yet. It went 
to him by voice vote out of the Senate last week. The defense cuts that 
will be triggered under the sequester are in addition to the $487 
billion in cuts to the Department identified by Secretary Gates.
  It is time for the President to provide the leadership to avoid these 
reductions that will render his own strategy unsustainable. A lot of 
people are wondering how they will be affected by these cuts. The fact 
that many of them will be voting in swing States in November is no 
reason to leave them wondering about their fate any longer.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wisconsin.


                              The Deficit

  Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Madam President, I have been listening to 
the debate on spending and taxes and our debt and deficit. I come to 
the floor this morning with a few visual aids and charts and graphs to 
try to dispel some of the myths I have been hearing.
  The first myth I constantly hear is about the Draconian cuts being 
proposed in the House budget. I think this chart pretty well dispels 
that by showing that 10 years ago, in 2002, the Federal Government 
spent $2 trillion. This last year--this year--we will spend about $3.8 
trillion. We have doubled spending in just 10 years. The debate

[[Page 12958]]

moving forward shows that under the House budget, we would spend $4.9 
trillion. President Obama's budget proposes spending $5.8 trillion. I 
think it is clear to see from this chart that nobody is proposing net 
cuts in spending. We are just trying to limit the rate of growth in 
spending.
  Another way of looking at spending is over 10 years. In the 1990s, 
the Federal Government over a 10-year period spent $16 trillion. The 
last decade, from 2002 through 2011, the Federal Government spent $28 
trillion. Again, the debate moving forward is, over the next 10 years 
do we spend $40 trillion, as the House budget proposes, or do we spend 
$47 trillion? Again, no cuts, just trying to reduce the rate of growth.
  Let's talk a little bit about what the Federal Government has spent 
under the current administration. Over the 4 years of President Obama's 
administration, the Federal Government in total will spend $14.4 
trillion. Think back to the last graph. That is almost as much as we 
spent in the decade of the 1990s. The entire deficit for that time 
period was $5.3 trillion. In other words, we had to borrow $5.3 
trillion of the $14.4 trillion we spent; that is, about 37 cents of 
every dollar spent, we borrowed. We put that debt burden on the backs 
of our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren.
  I often hear that the whole problem with the deficit is caused by the 
war costs or the 2001 to 2003 tax cuts. We added those to the chart 
here. We can see that the total amount over that 4-year period of the 
overseas war costs and the Bush tax cuts was $1.2 trillion. It is less 
than 25 percent of the total deficit. Again, they are a factor but not 
the cause of the deficit. The cause of the deficit primarily is 
spending.
  This chart basically shows what has been happening over the last 50 
years. The structural deficit we have incurred is a basic result, on 
average, of the Federal Government spending 20.2 percent of the gross 
domestic product from 1959 to 2008, prior to this administration. On 
the other hand, revenue generation averaged about 18.1 percent of GDP, 
which gives us a 2.1-percent structural deficit. That is why our debt 
has continued to grow.
  Under this administration, starting with the recession, that 
structural deficit exploded, with tax revenue dropping to about 15 
percent and spending skyrocketing to 25 percent and now to about 24 
percent. It is on a trajectory to hit 35 percent by the year 2035. 
Clearly, that is unsustainable.
  Another way of taking a look at the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, in 
terms of their total effect on our deficit figure, is to actually put 
them on a bar chart. The red bars represent the total deficit. The blue 
portions on the bottom of those red charts are the actual reductions in 
revenue from those tax cuts. We can see it is not a very large figure. 
In total, over that--I guess that is an 11-year time period, the total 
Bush tax cuts were about $1.7 trillion, while the entire deficit was 
about $7.5 trillion. The tax cuts represent about 22 percent of that 
total deficit--but, again, when we take a look at the last 4 years, a 
far smaller portion of the deficit, because the primary deficit over 
the last 4 years has been on the spending side of the equation.
  What does the President offer us for solutions? Last year, he 
proposed the Buffett rule. In a speech on September 26, in proposing 
the Buffett rule, he used the basic principle of fairness that he said 
the Buffett rule represents, and if that was applied to our Tax Code, 
it could raise enough to not only pay for his jobs bill, it would also 
stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade. Think about what 
President Obama said there. He said the Buffett rule would not only pay 
for his jobs bill but would stabilize our debt and deficits for the 
next decade. Here is the chart and here is the fact: The Buffett rule 
for 4 years--4 years of the Buffett rule, it was projected, would raise 
about $20 billion total. President Obama's 4 years of deficit is $5.3 
trillion. So let's state it a different way: $5,300 billion. It doesn't 
take a math major to realize $20 billion doesn't even come close to 
stabilizing a deficit of $5,300 billion. President Obama misled the 
American people. I think the President of the United States has a far 
higher duty to the American people. He should be honest with them.
  Last week, we debated the other tax proposals offered by our friends 
on the other side of the aisle. In proposing this and actually, 
unfortunately, passing this piece of tax legislation, the majority 
leader said this piece of legislation is about debt. It is about the 
debt, he said. We have to do something about the debt, and we have 
tried mightily to do that. We have tried mightily.
  Again, let's take a look at the facts. The first years of that tax 
legislation--the only years that count--would have raised $67 billion a 
year on average compared to last year's deficit of $1,326 billion. Is 
that trying mightily to fix the debt and deficit? I don't think so.
  If we were serious about fixing our debt and deficit situation, if we 
were trying mightily to do that, we might have tried passing a budget 
in the last few years. We might have actually brought appropriations 
bills to the floor so they could be debated and passed in the House and 
signed into law so we would not be faced with what we are faced with 
right now, which is a continuing resolution to fund the government in 
2013.
  Again, dispel the myth: The Democrats' tax proposal would do 
nothing--almost nothing--to stabilize our debt and deficit. It is 
simply a political exercise. It is political demagoguery. It is class 
warfare.
  I ask the American people to consider a simple question: Are they for 
increasing taxes on the productive sector of our economy, the small 
businesses, those 1 million small businesses that would be affected by 
this? The money that would be taken out of those small businesses that 
they would use to expand their business, to buy capital equipment, to 
increase wages, to pay for health care, and invest in 401(k) plans, it 
does not stabilize the debt and deficit. It does nothing to do that.
  I think Republicans basically agree with President Obama and 
President Clinton. Back on August 5, 2009, just as we were coming out 
of recession, President Obama said: ``You don't raise taxes in a 
recession.'' I agree with that. Republicans agree with that.
  Back in December--the last November and December of 2010--right after 
the lameduck session when all the tax rates were extended for 2 years, 
President Obama said: ``If we allow these taxes to go up . . . the 
economy would grow less.''
  He was right. Back then, by the way, average growth in our economy 
was about 3.1 percent. During the last four quarters now, the economy 
has only grown about 2 percent. Our economy is in worse shape. It only 
grew at 1.5 percent in the last quarter. We can see the downward 
trajectory.
  Of course, President Clinton also said probably the best thing we 
could do is to extend all the tax rates to take that sense of 
uncertainty off the table. That is what Republicans are proposing.
  Let's not increase taxes on any American at this point in time. Let's 
not threaten any kind of government shutdown. As much as fiscal 
conservatives do not like the Budget Control Act or those spending 
limits, we think it is reasonable policy to pass a 6-month continuing 
resolution so a responsible leader can come into this town and actually 
start fixing our debt and deficit situation.
  That is what Republicans are all about, taking the uncertainty of a 
shutdown off the table, taking the uncertainty of what people's tax 
rates will be over the next year off the table, and being responsible.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.


                            Small Businesses

  Mr. HELLER. Madam President, I don't believe any State has felt the 
brunt of this recession more than the State of Nevada. We are a State 
that leads the Nation in unemployment, leads in foreclosure, and leads 
the country in bankruptcy.
  There is not an evening that goes by or a day that goes by that I am 
not thinking about what can we do to create jobs and get our economy 
moving. In order to help small businesses thrive again, we must tear 
down the barriers

[[Page 12959]]

to growth and opportunity and launch this Nation into its next great 
chapter.
  Small businesses are our Nation's economic backbone and they were 
built on the very same values of hard work and determination our Nation 
was founded upon. This issue is very personal to me. I spent most of my 
childhood working at my father's automotive shop in Carson City--
Heller's Engine and Transmission. At this small business my dad taught 
me how to fix engines and transmissions but, more importantly, I 
learned about hard work, I learned about personal responsibility, and I 
learned how to provide an important service to our community.
  Although my father's shop has been closed for some time, I have asked 
him what he would do as a small business owner in today's environment. 
First of all, he said, you couldn't open that same shop, not with the 
regulations, the taxes, the overhead that would be involved from what 
this government has produced. But his simple answer is he would have to 
close his shop because of the uncertainty and the costs due to all the 
Federal regulations and mandates.
  Contrary to what some in Washington may believe, my father built his 
business and he worked long hours to make it successful. It was through 
this business that he provided for my mother and my five brothers and 
sisters. I can't thank my father enough for the values he instilled in 
me. It is humbling to think that all around our country sons and 
daughters are still learning from their parents who are making a living 
at their small businesses. These businesses are often struggling to 
make payroll, pay suppliers and, in some instances, can't even afford 
to pay themselves. These Americans are fighting every day to achieve 
the American dream, but what they get from Washington is more attacks 
on their livelihood in the form of new regulations, new mandates, and, 
of course, every day the talk of new taxes. Just last week, the 
majority party offered a tax plan that would kill 6,000 jobs in Nevada 
and more than 700,000 jobs nationwide. In a stagnant economy suffering 
from chronic unemployment, we should be looking for ways to strengthen 
job growth, not pushing destructive tax increases that serve as nothing 
more than political talking points.
  Every week I hold telephone townhall meetings with Nevadans from 
across the State. Lately, a lot of Nevadans have discussed how some in 
the majority party are willing to take our economy off a fiscal cliff 
if Republicans will not vote for tax increases on small businesses.
  For the past 2 weeks, I have asked all those participating in these 
townhall meetings if they believe this type of partisan politics is 
good for the economy. We shouldn't be surprised to know that a vast 
majority believe partisanship at the expense of the economy needs to 
end, and with that I agree.
  Last Friday, I visited Joe Dutra, who owns Kimmie Candy in Reno, at 
his factory. He talked about how he is fighting to grow his business 
with his kids, John and Kathryn. Unfortunately, instead of supporting 
small businesses throughout our country, Washington has been making a 
difficult situation even worse. Joe has been getting a lot of heat 
lately from the press because he is standing up against politicians who 
belittle his efforts and has had the courage to fight the destructive 
policies coming out of Washington.
  Let me assure my colleagues that Joe built his business and works 
hard to keep it going. That is what many small businesses across this 
country want to do. They want nothing more than to expand their 
businesses, hire more people, and pass on a legacy to their children 
and grandchildren that shows with hard work and dedication, anything is 
possible in America. Instead of encouraging this, Washington has 
increased their burden with miles of regulatory redtape. They passed a 
health care law that is costing jobs and continues with a top-down, 
Washington-knows-best mentality that has led to an anemic economy.
  Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and will be a key 
component to our recovery. It is far past time Washington recognized 
this by encouraging their growth and getting our Nation on the right 
track.
  Thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Johanns pertaining to the introduction of S. 3467 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                         Production Tax Credit

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, as I begin to talk this 
morning about the wind production tax credit, I think we all know that 
tax credits have encouraged our wind industry to invest in that great, 
new, cutting-edge form of power, and that has resulted in the creation 
of thousands of American jobs and wind projects all over our country. 
Forty-eight States have a stake in our wind energy industry. But the 
production tax credit that has driven this investment in American 
manufacturing and job creation is about to expire at the end of this 
year.
  I have been coming to the floor on an ongoing basis to make the case 
that we ought to extend the wind production tax credit as soon as 
possible.
  I know the Acting President pro tempore has been here on a couple of 
occasions when I have spoken about this issue before. In fact, this is 
the 14th time I have come to the floor to speak to this important 
opportunity but also the peril that awaits us if we do not extend the 
wind production tax credit. The key here is that we have created 
uncertainty. The wind energy industry is beginning to back off 
investments for next year. They need certainty. They need 
predictability.
  I have come to the floor today to talk, as I have been on each 
occasion, about a particular State and that State's contribution to the 
wind industry. Today I want to talk about North Dakota. It is a State 
with enough wind energy potential that it could meet more than 240 
times its own electricity needs--240 times its own electricity needs. 
In fact, we know North Dakota sits in an ocean of wind, and it could 
power much of the Midwest if we could get that electricity to the city 
centers that need it, and if we keep the wind production tax credit in 
place.
  What I want to talk about in particular in North Dakota are a couple 
of manufacturing facilities there. In the late 1990s, LM Glasfiber 
opened a facility in Grand Forks, which is in eastern North Dakota, 
close to the border of Minnesota, as shown on this map. They produce 
wind turbine blades there. And just a few years ago, DMI Industries--a 
company that manufactures the towers--opened a factory in West Fargo. 
That is also in eastern North Dakota. It is south of Grand Forks, over 
here, as shown on this map, on the Minnesota border as well.
  These wind turbines--and the Acting President pro tempore knows 
this--are magnificent machines. They sit on towers that in some cases 
are 100 meters tall. The wind blades themselves are like aircraft 
wings. The cell that sits on the top of the towers, where the gear box 
and all the technology is--these are very technical, very complicated, 
very sophisticated machines, and manufacturing them brings out American 
greatness. The point I am making is these are two important facilities 
in North Dakota.

[[Page 12960]]

  I also want to talk about the leadership that exists in North Dakota 
when it comes to wind energy. I want to start with our colleague, 
Senator Conrad. He has been a proponent of the production tax credit 
for over a decade. His reasoning is that this is a great opportunity 
for North Dakota, as well as for the country, and the wind production 
tax credit creates certainty.
  His colleague Senator Hoeven has also taken up the cause during his 
first term in the Senate.
  One of the key points I want to make here is those two Senators are 
from two political parties. Yet they each support the wind production 
tax credit. Last month, North Dakota hosted a renewable action energy 
summit in Bismarck, and both Senator Conrad and Senator Hoeven 
attended. During this summit national leaders talked about how North 
Dakota's robust and diverse energy sector has provided the model for 
creating jobs and helping reduce our Nation's dependence on foreign 
oil.
  I have to say this strikes me as the most intelligent kind of policy. 
It is a mix of traditional energy sources with sustainable energy such 
as wind. What you get from that is advanced technology. You have 
certainty for developers. You spur investment. You create jobs. I 
applaud North Dakota's leadership in putting in place a smart energy 
policy, an all-of-the-above energy policy, as well as our colleagues' 
work on this subject.
  The point I am making is that North Dakota recognizes investment in 
wind energy is an investment in jobs. Some of those numbers make that 
point. Some 2,000 jobs in North Dakota are supported by the wind energy 
industry. Those jobs are there no doubt because of the existence of a 
tax credit. I would add that the tax credit is a production tax credit. 
So you produce the power and then you get the tax credit. This is not 
speculative. This is not hoping that something will happen. This is 
based on production of electrons. That is why it is such a powerful 
tool. It has been used in the past, by the way, in other energy 
sectors. You produce power, you produce energy, you are rewarded with 
an energy tax credit.
  Besides jobs, the wind industry provides $4 million annually in 
property tax and land lease payments that go to supporting local 
communities and vital services tied to those communities. Where does 
North Dakota rank nationally? Well, they rank 10th in terms of 
installed wind capacity, and third in the Nation in percentage of 
electricity derived from wind, with almost 15 percent of their entire 
power supply coming from wind energy projects. That is the equivalent 
in North Dakota of 430,000 homes being powered by wind.
  That number--I know this is important to the Presiding Officer--
equals about 3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that are not 
released into our atmosphere every year. It is simple: The wind 
industry is important to America's future and it should be incented in 
communities that can support it, such as in North Dakota.
  The wind production tax credit is that incentive. Without a doubt, if 
the PTC is allowed to expire, this important American industry will 
shrink, move overseas, and take thousands of American jobs with it. So 
as I have done when I come to the floor, I am imploring our colleagues 
to work with me, to work with us to stop this possibility from becoming 
a reality. Wind energy is not a partisan issue.
  As I have noted, many of our colleagues agree with me, whether they 
are on this side of the aisle or the other side of the aisle. They 
understand if we do not extend the PTC we risk losing thousands of jobs 
and crippling a very important, successful, existing industry. So it 
would be a decision that we would all regret for a long time if we let 
the PTC expire.
  As I close, I again implore and urge my colleagues to work on this 
together. If we believe in energy independence and job creation, as we 
say, then we need to work together. Let's show Americans that we 
understand the economy is job one. One of the ways we can create new 
jobs is to extend the wind production tax credit. One of the ways we 
lose jobs is if we let the wind production tax credit expire. So we 
ought to be passing the PTC as soon as possible.
  The production tax credit equals jobs. It is crucial to our future. 
Let's not let the wind production tax credit be a casualty of election 
year partisanship. We cannot--America cannot--afford it.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon.


                            Disaster Relief

  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Colorado for 
his remarks about the production tax credit. This is incredibly 
important to the wind industry. It is a big factor in the economy of 
Colorado and certainly a substantial factor in the economy of Oregon. 
So I join him in making the case, if you will, that we need to make 
sure we continue to drive forward this clean energy manufacturing 
economy that produces zero carbon dioxide.
  I can tell you, I recently had the chance to drive from the northern 
border of Oregon to the southern border in an electric Leaf. We have 
enough charging stations now along the interstate to make this 
possible. It was miraculous to not produce a single molecule of 
pollution out of that car trip.
  If that energy for that car is coming from wind, then not any--zero--
carbon dioxide is produced, a zero impact on global warming. So 
certainly what is very good for the American worker, for the American 
economy, is also good for our air and the environment here in our 
Nation and around the world. We must get this production tax credit 
passed. I will continue to work with him to make this happen.
  I rise today to address a critical issue for Oregon's ranchers and 
farmers who are dealing with wildfire devastation--huge devastation. I 
am going to put up some pictures. We have had in the last month the 
largest fires in Oregon in over a century. An enormous amount of land 
has been burned in the process.
  The Long Draw fire in Malheur County burned 557,000 acres or, to 
translate that, that is about 900 square miles. This is the largest 
wildfire in Oregon since the 1800s. This chart shows the incredibly 
powerful flames these ranchers and farmers have been dealing with. As 
these flames sweep across the grasslands, the cattle and other 
livestock are often killed in the process. The land does not quickly 
recover because of the intensity of the fire and how it affects the 
soil.
  Let me give you another view of this same fire. This is actually a 
picture taken from Nevada looking toward Oregon. You see this massive 
wall, this massive wall of smoke coming across. It is an incredible 
sight to behold when a fire is in full rage as this was.
  The Long Draw fire was one of the major fires, but the Miller 
Homestead fire was another. It burned about 250 square miles. Here 
again, you can see the dramatic flame front southeast Oregon was 
fighting. This is moving through the sagebrush, continuously 
progressing, moving very quickly when the wind is driving it, creating 
an enormous wall of smoke.
  Let's take one more view. Here we see the aftermath of the fire when 
it was stopped by a road as an interlude. It completely destroyed land 
on one side of the highway, and what it looked like, this green 
grassland, this was not all dry and parched, this green grassland, 
before the fire moved through.
  In addition to these two huge fires, we have had a number of others--
the Lexfalls fire in Jefferson County; the Baker Canyon fire in 
Jefferson and Wasco Counties; the West Crater fire in Malheur County, 
each of these having a substantial impact in addition to the Miller 
Homestead and the Long Draw fires.
  Together, these fires have consumed over 1,100 square miles. That is 
roughly an area the size of Rhode Island. So an entire State would fit 
into the area burned in Oregon. These fires are now under control, and 
southeastern Oregon is surveying the damage and picking up the pieces.
  One of the things they would immediately turn to, our farmers and our 
ranchers, would be the disaster assistance that has always existed 
within the farm bill. But guess what. These disaster assistance 
programs are not available because the House has failed

[[Page 12961]]

to act on the farm bill. This Senate passed the farm bill, a bipartisan 
bill, Republicans and Democrats coming together.
  In it are the reauthorizations of four key programs. One of them is 
the Livestock Indemnity Program that addresses when there is a natural 
disaster like this, addresses the death and the loss of cattle and 
other livestock.
  A second is the Emergency Assistance for Livestock Program called the 
ELAP. But it basically addresses the lost value of forage on private 
land, and then the LFP program, or Livestock Forage Disaster Program, 
that addresses the loss of forage on public land. Those of you who are 
not from the West may not be aware that a lot of our livestock is 
operating on land that is leased to our ranchers. So when a fire like 
this affects those public lands, it also is affecting the value of the 
lease to those farmers and the ability of their livestock--those that 
have survived the fire--to be able to find forage and continue to live.
  It is deeply disturbing that the House has not voted on the farm bill 
and sent it to conference. I urge them to act on this quickly. Without 
these key disaster relief programs, ranchers and farmers who have lost 
livestock and grazing land are left with few options. That is wrong. A 
rancher in southeastern Oregon who has been devastated by these 
wildfires should not pay the price because the House of Representatives 
will not bring a farm bill that it can pass and send to conference.
  Let's be clear. The best solution to this problem, as well as many 
other issues, would be for the House to pass the bipartisan Senate farm 
bill. This would bring timely relief to all of those who have suffered 
in the disaster, and certainly to the farmers and ranchers across 
Oregon who have been struck by the largest fire in this century, a fire 
larger than the State of Rhode Island.
  But if we can get consensus to bring immediate relief in the face of 
the inaction by the House, then we should do so. That is why I have 
introduced the Wildfire and Drought Relief for Farmers and Ranchers Act 
to extend the most urgently needed programs immediately. This would 
extend the programs for livestock indemnity. This would extend the 
program for forage loss on public lands and forage loss on private 
lands.
  I urge my colleagues to take the same bipartisan spirit they brought 
to the farm bill to recognize that this Chamber has already voted to 
extend disaster programs and, if necessary, move quickly to extend 
these disaster programs, if necessary by themselves, in order to help 
our ranchers, to help our farmers who have been affected by these 
natural disasters, including this once-in-a-century fire in the State 
of Oregon.
  Again, I encourage the House of Representatives to immediately get 
the farm bill to conference. This should be done in the context of many 
programs that need to be renewed that have been worked out. But in 
absence of that, let's find a way to move quickly to assist our farmers 
and ranchers in the face of devastating natural disasters.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as 
in morning business for the duration of my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                  Anniversary of I-35w Bridge Disaster

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to speak on the 5-year 
anniversary of the horrific collapse of the I-35W bridge in 
Minneapolis, and to pay tribute to those who lost their lives on that 
tragic summer day.
  As I said the day after the bridge collapse, ``A bridge just should 
not fall down in the middle of America.'' Not a bridge that is a few 
blocks from my house. Not an eight-lane highway. Not a bridge that I 
drive over every day with my husband and my daughter. But that is what 
happened that sunny summer day in Minneapolis, MN.
  I can't even begin to count how many times I have thought about that 
bridge, and everyone in our State actually remembers where they were 
the day it collapsed. It was one of the most heavily traveled bridges 
in our State, and in all that day 13 people lost their lives and scores 
were injured. So many more could have been killed if not for the first 
responders, if not for the volunteers, who instead of running away from 
the disaster, when they had no idea what actually happened, ran toward 
it and rescued their fellow citizens.
  Everyone was shocked and horrified, but on that evening and in the 
days that followed, the whole world watched as our State came together, 
as they did in the minutes and hours after the collapse. I was proud to 
be a Minnesotan.
  The emergency response to the bridge collapse demonstrated an 
impressive level of preparedness and coordination that should be a 
model for the Nation. We saw true heroes in the face of unimaginable 
circumstances. We saw an off-duty Minneapolis firefighter named Shannon 
Hanson, who grabbed her lifejacket and was among the first at the 
scene. Tethered to a yellow life rope in the midst of broken concrete 
and tangled rebar, she swam from car to car searching for survivors up 
and down in that river.
  We saw that schoolbus perched precariously on the falling bridge 
deck. I called it the miracle bus. Inside there were dozens of kids 
from a very poor neighborhood, who had been on a swimming field trip. 
Their bus was crossing the bridge when it dropped. Thanks to the quick 
action of responsible adults and the children themselves, they all 
survived, they all got off that bus.
  Although you can never feel good about a tragedy like this one, I 
certainly felt good about our police officers, firefighters, 
paramedics, and all the medical personnel who literally saved dozens 
and dozens of lives.
  On this, the 5-year anniversary of the bridge collapse, we should 
again honor those heroes and the countless lives they saved.
  For a minute, I want to tell you a few examples. A woman named Pamela 
Louwagie, who writes for the Star Tribune, gathered some of their 
stories this weekend. Some of these people I know. Lindsey Patterson 
Walls was in a Volkswagen that went over the bridge; she kicked out the 
doors and windows and was able to get out and survive. She is putting 
the collapse to work in her career. She is a youth worker who counsels 
children and teens and she discovered that her trauma, as hard as it 
was, wasn't so different than that of her clients. She felt insecure in 
the world, wondering whether another bridge would collapse under her, 
and she realized that the homeless teens she counsels felt insecure, 
wondering where they would sleep at night. It is a lesson she takes 
with her every day in her job.
  Betsy Sathers is someone I have come to know. Her husband was 29 
years old when he died in that bridge collapse. They had just gotten 
married and they planned on having a family. She decided to adopt 
children from Haiti. In the aftermath of that earthquake, she already 
knew the names of these children she was going to adopt. She would not 
let those kids just be left in that rubble. She contacted our office. 
We worked with her and brought Alyse and Ross back from Haiti, and she 
is their mother. I saw them this weekend with their big smiles and 
their mom. That is an inspirational story.
  The Coulter family was in their minivan--the kids, the mom, the dad. 
It was clear at the beginning that they were severely injured and the 
mom, Paula, they didn't think would survive. Also, after they learned 
that maybe she was going to make it--she had devastating injuries to 
her brain and her back--one time during one of the surgeries, they had 
to jolt her heart back to life. They had suggested that her family 
start looking for nursing home care. But she didn't give up--Paula and 
her family didn't give up. After 2 years, with the help of some great 
therapists, she could walk and move again and go back to her counseling 
job part time, and two summers ago she and her trainer ran a 5K race. 
That is inspirational.
  Then there is the bridge itself. After it collapsed, it was so clear 
to us that

[[Page 12962]]

we had to rebuild it and we had to rebuild it right away. In just 3 
days, Senator Coleman and I worked together in the Senate to secure 
$250 million in emergency bridge reconstruction funding. Representative 
Jim Oberstar led the way in the House. Approval of the funding came 
with remarkable speed in this Chamber. It was bipartisan and we were 
able to get the funding. From the moment that bridge started 
construction to the end, it took less than a year to rebuild a bridge 
that is now a 10-lane highway.
  Today, the new I-35W bridge is a symbol of pride and the resilience 
of a community. This weekend, when I was at the Twin Cities heroes 
parade with our veterans, the organizer looked at me proudly and said: 
Tonight they are lighting up the 35W bridge red, white, and blue. So it 
literally has become a symbol of hope in our State.
  The new bridge is a hundred-year bridge with more lanes than before. 
It is also safer. The bridge includes state-of-the-art anti-icing 
technology, as well as shoulders, which the old bridge didn't have.
  Of course, bridge safety was on the minds of all Americans, 
especially those of us in Minnesota, following the bridge collapse. 
Immediately afterward, the Minnesota Department of Transportation 
inspected all 25 bridges in Minnesota with a similar design as the I-
35W bridge. This inspection led to the closing of the Highway 23 bridge 
in St. Cloud, where bulging of gusset plates was found. I remember 
seeing it. It accelerated its planned replacement of that bridge, which 
opened in 2009.
  But the reforms were not all structural. Since then, the department 
of transportation in our State has improved the way the inspections and 
maintenance functions of the department handle critical information and 
necessary repairs.
  Just as in Minnesota, bridge safety became a priority nationally as 
well. After the National Transportation Safety Board identified gusset 
plates as being heavily responsible for the collapse, a critical review 
of gusset plates was conducted on bridges across America, and there was 
new attention focused on deterioration of steel and weight added to 
bridges over the years through maintenance and resurfacing projects.
  The national organization that develops highway and bridge standards, 
the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, 
updated bridge manuals that are used by State and county bridge 
engineers across the Nation.
  I will say that 5 years later we have still not made as much progress 
as I would have liked. The Federal Highway Administration estimates 
that over 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are still either 
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
  The American Society of Civil Engineers gave bridges in America a C 
grade in its 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure and a D for 
infrastructure overall.
  We did take a positive step forward with the recent bipartisan 
transportation bill that will help State departments of transportation 
fix bridges and improve infrastructure.
  For Minnesota, that bill means more than $700 million for Minnesota's 
roads, bridges, transit, congestion mitigation projects, and mobility 
improvements.
  The bill gives greater flexibility to State departments of 
transportation to direct Federal resources to address unique needs in 
each State. It also establishes benchmarks and national policy goals, 
including strengthening our Nation's bridges, and links those to 
Federal funds. It reduces project delivery time and accelerates 
processes that will reduce in half the amount of time to get projects 
under way.
  However, we all know more needs to be done. While other countries are 
moving full steam ahead with infrastructure investments, we seem to be 
simply treading water, and in an increasingly competitive global 
economy standing still is falling behind.
  China and India are spending, respectively, 9 and 5 percent of their 
GDP on infrastructure. We need to keep up. We need to build our 
infrastructure. That is why I authored the Rebuild America Jobs Act 
last fall, which would have invested in our Nation's infrastructure. It 
would have also created a national infrastructure bank--something the 
occupant of the chair is familiar with--to help facilitate public-
private partnerships, so that projects could be built that would 
otherwise be too expensive for a city, a county, or even a State to 
accomplish on its own. We included a provision to set aside a certain 
amount of funding for road projects. Unfortunately, while we got a 
majority of the Senate voting to advance this bill, we were unable to 
break the filibuster.
  So 5 years to the day after the I-35W bridge fell into the 
Mississippi River, we know we have much to do to ensure our 21st 
century economy has the 21st century infrastructure we need. I know I 
am committed to move forward and work in a bipartisan way to address 
our Nation's critical bridge and infrastructure needs and prevent 
another tragedy like the collapse of the I-35W bridge.
  They didn't distinguish on that bridge on that day 5 years ago who 
was a Democrat or Republican. Certainly those first responders--the 
cops and firefighters--didn't ask what political party somebody 
belonged to. They simply did their job. That is what we need to do in 
the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.


                       Cybersecurity Act of 2012

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise to speak about the 
Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which is numbered S. 3414.
  Last night, the majority leader, Senator Reid, filed a cloture motion 
which would ripen for a vote on tomorrow. Senator Reid said he was 
saddened to have to file that motion. He also used a word we don't hear 
much when he said he was ``flummoxed'' by the need to file a cloture 
motion on bipartisan legislation that responds to what all of the 
experts in security in our country from the last administration and 
this one say is a critical threat to our security, which is the lack of 
defenses in the cyber infrastructure that is owned by the private 
sector.
  Senator Reid was saddened, as I was, that he had to file for cloture 
because, of course, there can be disagreements about how to respond to 
this threat to our security and our prosperity. Hundreds of billions of 
dollars of American ingenuity and money have already been stolen by 
cyber thieves operating not only from within our country but, more 
often, from outside. So you can have differences of opinion about how 
to deal with the problem. But the fact that people started to introduce 
totally irrelevant amendments, such as the one to repeal ObamaCare--
well, that is a debatable issue. We have debated it many times, as the 
House has, but not on this bill, which we urgently need to pass and 
send to the House and then go into conference and then, hopefully, pass 
something and send it to the President.
  I was at a briefing with more than a dozen Members of the Senate, 
representing a wide bipartisan group and ideological group, with 
leaders of our security agencies--cyber security agencies, including 
the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, NSA, 
and they could not have been clearer about the fact that this cyber 
threat is not a speculative threat. The fact is we are under attack 
over cyber space right now. In terms of economics, we have already lost 
an enormous amount of money. GEN Keith Alexander, Chief of U.S. Cyber 
Command, described the loss of industrial information and intellectual 
property, and just plain money, through cyber theft as ``the greatest 
transfer of wealth in history.'' That is going on.
  We are also under cyber attack by enemies who are probing the control 
systems, the cyber control systems that control not the mom-and-pop 
businesses at home, not the Internet systems over which so many of us 
shop these days, but the cyber systems that control the electric 
supply, that control all of our financial transactions, large and 
small, that control our transportation system, our telecommunication 
system--all the things we depend on to sustain our society and our 
individual lives. That is who we are talking about here.

[[Page 12963]]

  It is the greatest transfer of wealth in history. But our enemies are 
already probing those private companies' cyber systems that control 
that kind of critical infrastructure I have described. There is some 
reason to believe that because of the vulnerability of those systems 
and lack of adequate defenses, they have already placed in them 
malware, bugs--whatever we want to call it. In the old days, we used to 
call it a sleeper cell of spies and, more recently, in terms of 
terrorism, a sleeper cell of terrorists.
  Let me put it personally, without stating it definitively on the 
floor. I worry that enemies of the United States have already placed 
what I call cyber sleeper cells in critical cyber control systems that 
control critical infrastructure in our country. Everybody will say that 
some companies that own critical infrastructure are doing a pretty good 
job of defending it and us, but some are not. That is one of the 
reasons this bill has occurred--to try to create a collaborative 
process where the private sector and the public sector can act together 
in the national interest.
  The businesses themselves that control cyber infrastructure--God 
forbid there is a major cyber attack on the United States--are going to 
be enormous losers. They are going to be subject, under the current 
state of the law, to the kind of liability in court that may bring some 
of them down. It may end their corporate existence.
  Mr. CARPER. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would be glad to yield to my friend from Delaware 
for a question. He is the cosponsor of our main bill, S. 3414.
  Mr. CARPER. The message the Senator is conveying today is so 
important. I hope folks who are unsure about supporting our legislation 
are listening.
  I was briefed earlier today by a large multinational company. One of 
its divisions is manufacturing, among other things, helicopters. 
Apparently, within the last 12 months, maybe even 6 months, the plans 
for developing and manufacturing one such helicopter were hacked and 
obtained by another nation--presumably the Chinese. So they will 
develop and will build their version of our helicopters. They won't be 
built by Americans. They will not provide American jobs. It will not 
provide revenues to that company or tax revenues to our Treasury; they 
will really be apprehended, if you will, by another nation. That is the 
reality of this theft.
  So I was reminded just this morning of what the Senator is talking 
about, what General Alexander says is the largest economic threat in 
the history of our country, and it is taking place. I was reminded of 
that this morning, and I just wanted to share that with the Senator.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Delaware very much. I think 
he crystallized the moment we are in.
  I mentioned that Senator Reid filed a cloture motion that will ripen 
tomorrow. Again, he did it in sadness, and I was sad he had to do it. 
This is an issue on which I had hoped we would overcome gridlock--
special interest driven, ideologically driven, politically driven--but 
we couldn't do it, so the majority leader did exactly what he had to 
do, in my opinion, in the national security interest.
  This does two things. One, as my colleagues know and I repeat just to 
remind them, we have a 1 p.m. deadline when any Member of the Senate 
can file a first-degree amendment to this bill. That is important to 
do. And I want to say that the managers of the bill--Senator Collins' 
staff, the Republican cloakroom, my staff, the Democratic cloakroom--
are going to be working on these amendments to see if we can begin to 
move toward a finite list so we can give some sense of certainty.
  Senator Reid has been very clear. He has not wanted to, to use an 
idiom of the Senate, fill the tree, which is to say limit amendments. 
He has wanted to have an open amendment process, which really ought to 
happen on a bill of this kind, but open for germane and relevant 
amendments, not amendments on repealing ObamaCare or, I say 
respectfully, on enacting more gun control. Those are both significant 
and substantial issues, but they are going to block this bill from 
passing if people insist on bringing them up here.
  So the first and positive consequence of Senator Reid's cloture 
motion--one we all signed--is to require that amendments people have 
been talking about filing have to come forward by 1 p.m., and 
bipartisan staffs will be working to winnow that down to a finite list.
  Second, if we don't have an agreement on a finite list and we cannot 
vitiate the cloture vote for tomorrow, then Members of the Senate--
every one, in their own heart and head--will have to make the decision 
as to whether to vote against taking up this bill while all the 
nonpolitical experts on our security--GEN Keith Alexander, Director of 
Cyber Command within the Pentagon, head of the National Security 
Agency, and one of the jewels and treasures of our government 
protecting our security, appealed to Senators Reid and McConnell in a 
letter yesterday stating that this legislation is critically necessary 
now.
  This legislation will give our government and the private sector 
operators of critical cyber infrastructure powers they do not have now, 
authorities they do not have now to collaborate, to take action, to 
share information, to adopt what General Alexander in a wonderful 
phrase said is the best computer hygiene, the best cyber hygiene to 
protect our country.
  So that is the question facing Members of the Senate in the face of 
that kind of statement of the urgency of some form of cyber security 
legislation in this session from the Director of Cyber Command, an 
honored, distinguished veteran of our uniformed military--U.S. Army in 
this case.
  Are we going to find it hard to get 60 Members of the Senate to vote 
to take up this bill and debate it? I hope not. For me, it would be 
hard to explain--I will put it that way--why I would vote against it no 
matter what the controversy is.
  I would say to my friend from Delaware, who has been involved, that I 
will yield to him if he wants to make a statement, but we have been 
working really hard with three groups: the group who sponsored S. 3414, 
the Cybersecurity Act of 2012; the group who sponsored SECURE IT, 
Senators Hutchison, Chambliss, McCain, et al.; and the third group, the 
bipartisan group that sprung up because of the urgency of this clear-
and-present danger to America, led by Senator Kyl and Senator 
Whitehouse, who is also on the floor and really has played an important 
role in bringing the two sides--if I can put it that way--closer 
together. Frankly, there was a chasm that separated us at the outset. 
We have changed our bill. We have made it much more voluntary--carrots 
instead of sticks, as the Senator and I have said. But still there are 
differences, and I would just say shame on us if we can't bridge those 
differences on national security, of all topics.
  So this is an important day to see if we can come together. Senator 
Collins and I are ready and willing to meet with the sponsors of the 
other bills--Senator Kyl, Senator Whitehouse--to see if we can come to 
some kind of agreement on critical parts of this legislation and to 
come up with a finite list we can support.
  Just a final word. I wish to thank the majority leader, Senator Reid. 
Senator Reid has a tough job, and it is obviously battered by the 
political moment we are in, whenever we are in it. And of course this 
is a particularly political moment--partisan--because of the election 
season and the campaign we are in. But I have known Harry Reid for 
quite a while, and I have the greatest confidence and trust in him and 
an awful lot of affection. He is a personal friend. He got briefed 
about the cyber security threat more than a year ago, and he called me 
in and we talked about it. He said he was really worried, that we had 
to do something in this session of Congress to protect our security, 
and he has been steadfast in that belief and has refused to give up.
  Senator Reid filed the cloture motion to bring this to a head and 
hopefully to get to that finite list of amendments. And I think he is 
going to

[[Page 12964]]

stretch, within the process and time, the great authority and power the 
majority leader has--some people say it may be the only power these 
days, but I think he has more because of his skills--in controlling the 
schedule. I think if there is a hope that we can bring a bill together 
and pass a cyber security bill, Senator Reid is going to give us every 
opportunity to do that. So I wanted to put on the record my thanks to 
him for his own commitment to improving the cyber security of our 
country because he has listened to the experts and they have convinced 
him. This is rising to be a greater threat to America than any other 
threat we face today, and that is saying a lot, but I believe it.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor for my friend from Delaware.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I am joined on the floor by Senator 
Whitehouse, so we might take a moment here with the chairman to have a 
little bit of a colloquy and then head off to another hearing.
  While he is here, I wanted to say a special thank-you to Senator 
Whitehouse for the work he and Jon Kyl, our colleague from Arizona, and 
Chris Coons, our colleague from Delaware, and others have done in 
really helping to put the meat on the bones, if you will, of our 
original legislation. And they have done great work. I really admire 
them, and I thank all of them.
  Over at the other end of the Capital, they have spent a whole lot of 
time in recent weeks and months on the issue of Fast and Furious, and I 
wanted to mention that one of the reasons I think the American people 
are furious with us is we are not moving fast enough to deal with the 
economy and to create jobs. Yet government doesn't create jobs. 
Presidents don't create jobs. Governors don't create jobs. As a former 
Governor, I know this. Members of the Senate don't create jobs. We help 
create a nurturing environment for jobs and job creation. That includes 
a lot of things, such as a world-class workforce, access to capital, 
infrastructure, access to reasonably priced energy and reasonably 
priced health care. But it also includes, as we go forward in time, the 
assurance that if a company spends a lot of money--a lot of R&D and 
investments--and it comes up with a really good idea that has 
commercial application, that before it can even build that idea, create 
that idea, or sell that idea in this country and manufacture and sell 
it around the world, the idea is not going to be stolen--stolen--by 
someone from another country who will use that idea to make money on 
their own.
  That introduces an uncertainty in this country we have never had to 
worry about before. We just have not had to worry about that before. 
But, as General Alexander has said and has been quoted here already 
today, the greatest economic thievery in our history is underway right 
now through cyber security. This is as much a jobs issue as it is a 
security issue. It is an economic security issue, and we have to be 
mindful of that.
  I have spoken to some of our friends over at the chamber of commerce 
with whom we work on a variety of issues and said to them that we need 
their involvement and support. We need them to help us get through 
this. If they have good ideas, if they have read the legislation as it 
is redrawn and want to share those ideas with us today, Democrats and 
Republicans, that would be a huge help.
  I hope everybody over at the chamber is watching today, and I hope 
they hear this request for them to be more involved in a constructive 
way. It is not so much that we need them in the Senate, we need them as 
a country, and the folks who are their members across the country need 
them to be involved as well.
  This legislation started out as more of a command-and-control deal 
where our Department of Homeland Security was going to say: These are 
our standards, and we expect companies and industries in critical areas 
to comply with these, and that is it.
  That is an oversimplification of the original legislation, but we 
have moved so far away from that, it is amazing. We have moved from a 
command-and-control system to one where we say to critical industries, 
sensitive industries: Listen, you figure out amongst yourselves what 
the best practices and standards ought to be for protecting you and 
your businesses and your ideas. You figure it out, you share those 
ideas, develop those ideas, really, in a collaborative way with a 
council that includes the Department of Commerce, the Department of 
Justice, the Department of Defense, Homeland Security. And then, in an 
interim process, we refine those ideas, refine those best practices, 
and refine those standards, which would then be implemented. If 
companies don't want to comply with them, they do not have to. It is on 
a voluntary basis. If they do, there are rewards. If they do not, they 
do not participate in those rewards, including protection from 
liability.
  Sometimes we get stuck on legislation, and we just say: This is it, 
and we are not going to change it. This is it, and we are not going to 
let you do that. But here we have changed this legislation dramatically 
and I think for the better. Some people say we changed it too much in 
order to get to ``yes.''
  The last thing I would say before I yield to Senator Whitehouse is 
that the legislation before us is not a Democratic idea, nor is it a 
Republican idea. This is not a conservative idea. This is not a liberal 
idea. This is a good idea, and this is an idea that has gotten better 
over time. This is an idea whose time has come. And we need to be 
mindful of the fury across our country. We need to move faster to take 
good ideas like this and make them better and to implement them.
  With that, I yield to Senator Whitehouse, and again a big thank-you 
for the great work he and Senators Coons and Kyl have done, as usual.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, at this point I will speak, if I 
may, in the nature of a colloquy with the chairman and with the Senator 
from Delaware, but first let me thank the Senator from Delaware for his 
very kind remarks. Senator Carper, as everybody knows in the Senate, is 
really a bellwether of bipartisanship, and he constantly seeks 
cooperation. So I appreciate very much his efforts to bring us 
together.
  The chairman has been working very hard on these bills for many 
years, and the bill on the floor now is the product of considerable 
work in his committee--Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 
Committee--considerable work in the Intelligence Committee, and 
considerable work in the Commerce Committee primarily, although we in 
the Judiciary Committee have had some input as well. So while there has 
been no specific hearing on the assembled bill, because it covers so 
many committees, it has to be brought together at some point, and its 
components have had extensive committee work. So we have all put a lot 
of effort into this, and we have actually all come a very long way, I 
believe.
  Our window is very short, and I hope and expect we can use the hours 
ahead of us literally to work to close this gap. But I believe the 
distance we have come, and particularly that last bit of distance, when 
the chairman changed S. 3414 to go from a traditional mandatory 
regulatory system to the new voluntary standards, really has moved us 
in enormous ways. We are almost on the 1 yard line now, and I believe 
it would be such a shame, with things being that close, if we couldn't 
close the deal.
  I would like to ask the chairman to react to that assessment of our 
situation, and I would also like to ask him to react to one other 
point, which is that the House took action on cyber security but it 
only did so in the form of legislation on information sharing. All of 
our information--the letter yesterday from General Alexander and 
everything we have heard from our national security officials--is that 
is not enough.
  We have two really important jobs. One is information sharing, and 
the other is defending America's privately owned critical 
infrastructure--our electric grids, our communications

[[Page 12965]]

networks, our data-processing systems. Those are our great liability. 
Those are the things Secretary of Defense Panetta was referring to when 
he said that the next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a 
cyber attack.
  So are we as close as I think and is it important that the Senate do 
its job because the House simply failed to address the critical 
infrastructure part of our responsibilities?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Again, I thank our friend from Rhode Island for the 
extraordinarily constructive role he has played--unusual here, 
unfortunately--in bringing the group of eight Members, four Democrats 
and four Republicans, together. Senator Whitehouse, along with Senator 
Kyl of Arizona, created a bridge that really invited Senators Collins, 
Feinstein, Rockefeller, Carper, and me to come halfway across to change 
our bill from mandatory to voluntary.
  So my answers to the Senator's two questions are yes and yes. We are 
a lot closer than we were really just a month ago--a matter of weeks 
ago. There is a remaining difference, and it is real. But considering 
where we have come from, if we show a willingness to compromise--and 
again, as I have said over and over, not a compromise of principle--
that acknowledges that if everybody in the Senate insists on getting 
100 percent of what they want on a bill, nobody is going to get 
anything because nothing is going to pass. So we have come back from 
our 100 percent quite a lot, and we are still open to ideas that will 
enable us to achieve what we need to achieve here in improving our 
cyber security, which means changing where we are now.
  That is why, as my friend from Rhode Island knows, we are going to 
keep meeting today with the other leading sponsors of the bill and with 
the peacemakers in between to see if we can find common ground and 
avoid what I think could be a very disappointing cloture vote--a very 
divisive, very destructive cloture vote--tomorrow.
  The second point is a very important one; that is, the House has 
acted, but it has only acted with regard to information sharing. This 
is important, but it is only half the job. The information sharing, in 
brief, says that private companies that operate critical infrastructure 
can share with other private companies if they are attacked or as they 
begin to defend themselves so they mutually can strengthen each other. 
They can also share with the government, and the government, 
particularly through the Department of Homeland Security and the 
National Security Agency, can help the private sector strengthen 
itself. Those kinds of communications, which are critical and would 
seem natural, don't happen now in too many cases because the private 
sector is anxious about liability that it might incur. Even the public 
sector is limited in how much it can reach out or help. So it is 
important that the House has addressed that part of it.
  I will say--and not just parenthetically--that there has been very 
significant concern of a lot of Americans and a quite remarkable 
coalition of groups--remarkable in the sense that it is right to left, 
along the ideological spectrum--about the personal privacy rights of 
the American people, that they not be compromised as a result of this 
information sharing.
  Those privacy advocacy groups are not happy with the House 
information-sharing bill. I am pleased they have praised what we have 
tried to do as a result of negotiations with colleagues in this Chamber 
who are concerned about privacy. The point Senator Whitehouse makes is 
so true, but that is only half the job. Everybody who cares about cyber 
security has said it.
  There was, I must say, an encouraging, inspiring, for us, editorial 
in the New York Times today, supporting essentially S. 3414, the 
underlying bill, and crying out to us to take action and not get 
dragged down into gridlock by special interest thinking. But here is a 
statistic that jumped out at me. I saw it once before, but we have not 
heard it in this debate. In a Times editorial today entitled 
``Cybersecurity at Risk,'' this sentence: ``Last year, a survey of more 
than 9,000 executives in more than 130 countries by the 
PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting firm found that only 13 percent of 
those polled had taken adequate defensive action against 
cyberthreats.''
  That is worldwide. But I can tell you from what I know, the number in 
our country is not much better. That is why we need this set of 
standards, best practices, computer hygiene--no longer mandatory but we 
create an incentive. It is as if a company chooses to go into what my 
friend from Rhode Island has quite vividly described as Fort Cyber 
Security. We are going to build Fort Cyber Security of the best 
practices to defend cyber security, and we are going to leave it to the 
companies that operate critical infrastructure totally on their own 
whether they want to go into Fort Cyber Security. If they do, they will 
have some significant immunity from liability in the case of a major 
attack.
  My answer to the Senator's questions are yes and yes. I just want to 
come back to something the Senator said at the outset of his remarks. I 
never know how much this argument weighs on Senators' minds, but once 
again it is being made here, which is this bill has received no 
hearings; it is not ready for action.
  Good God. I went back and looked at the Record. I attended my first 
hearing on cyber security held in what was then the Governmental 
Affairs Committee--it is now the Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs Committee--chaired then by Senator Fred Thompson in 1998, 14 
years ago. I can tell my colleague that in recent years, Senator 
Collins and I have held 10 hearings on the subject of cyber security. 
That is only in our committee. That is not counting judiciary, 
intelligence, commerce--I think foreign relations may have held some 
hearings on it too. In fact, we held a hearing just earlier this year, 
I believe it was March, on cyber security and the legislation that we 
knew we were going to bring forward. This has been heard.
  I wish to say this too. I mentioned Senator Reid's commitment to 
doing something about cyber security. Last year--I am trying to think, 
but I cannot remember a time on another bill where I saw this happen--
Senator Reid asked the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, to join 
him in calling in the Democratic chairs and the ranking Republican 
members of all the relevant committees, relevant to cyber security that 
we just talked about, and made an appeal that we work together to bring 
one bill which he would then, as he has done before when a subject 
covers more than one committee, blend into a single bill and bring to 
the floor under majority leader's authority pursuant to rule XIV of the 
Senate rules, which he has done today.
  So there has not been a specific hearing on this bill, but Lord knows 
there have been a lot of hearings and this bill has been vetted and 
negotiated not only with many Members of the Senate but by our 
committee and all the other committees--by stakeholders, private 
stakeholders, by some of the very businesses and business organizations 
that now seem to be the main block to moving forward on the bill.
  I probably responded to my friend at greater length than I might have 
or perhaps more than he expected, but his questions were right on 
target, and I thank him for giving me the opportunity.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Will the Senator yield for another question?
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I mentioned, to use the Senator's words, it was 
important to help the private sector strengthen itself. Some of the 
debate that has surrounded this bill has suggested that if we just get 
the heavy hand of government out of the way and let the nimble private 
sector do its thing to protect critical infrastructure, all will be 
well, and that a purely private sector way of proceeding is the best 
way to proceed.
  In that context, the Senator mentioned the study that showed that 
only 13 percent of the private businesses that were reviewed were 
adequately cyber security prepared. The NCIJTF, which is the FBI-led 
joint task force

[[Page 12966]]

that protects our national cyber infrastructure, has said that when 
they detect a cyber attack and they go out to work with the corporation 
that has been attacked, 9 out of 10 times the corporation had no idea. 
It is not just a government agency, the NCIJTF, saying that, there is a 
company called Mandiant which is sort of ``Who are you going to call? 
Ghost Busters.'' When someone is hit, they come in and help the 
companies clean up. They say the same thing: Out of 10 times, these 
companies had to find out that they had been penetrated from a 
government agency telling them, ``By the way, you have been hacked. 
They are in there.''
  In fact, he said 48 out of the last 50 companies they dealt with had 
no idea. The Aurora virus hit 300 American companies, and only three of 
them knew it. The chamber of commerce, which is very active in this 
debate, had Chinese hackers with complete impunity throughout its cyber 
systems without knowing about it for at least 6 months. It was only 
when the government said, ``By the way, guys, your info was on a server 
in China,'' that they realized, ``Oh, my gosh; we have been hacked 
too.''
  Then the Senator has used the statistic I have used before--that 
General Alexander, who is head of Cyber Command, has adopted--which is 
that America is now on the losing end of the biggest transfer of wealth 
in history through illicit means as a result of cyber industrial 
espionage--stealing from us our chemical formulas, our manufacturing 
processes, and various things that create value in the country.
  So I am not just pinpointing individual examples. If we look at it 
from a macro point of view, we are getting our clocks cleaned in this 
area. The private sector, it seems to me all of the evidence suggests, 
is an area in which it is not adequately protecting itself without a 
government role to spur cooperation and to set an agreed standard that 
NSA and the people who are watching this with real anxiety every day 
know is an adequate standard to meet the needs.
  If the Senator from Connecticut would respond, I would be grateful.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Basically, I would say I agree. There is not much I 
could add to that. This is not legislation that is a solution in search 
of a problem. This is a real problem. Again, we are hearing it from all 
the cyber security experts.
  If the private sector owners of critical cyber infrastructure--
electric power grids, telecommunications, finance, water dams, et 
cetera--if they were taking enough defensive action, we wouldn't want 
to act, but they are not. And we understand why. We have talked about 
this. A lot of the CIOs--chief information officers--in companies get 
frustrated that their CEOs don't want to devote enough time and 
resources to beefing up their cyber defenses.
  The Senator said something very important, which is cyber theft and 
cyber attack is so insidious that a lot of people and companies who are 
victims of cyber attack don't even know it. My great fear is that there 
is a lot of malware or bugs--I called it cyber cells earlier--planted 
in some of our critical cyber control systems in our country waiting 
for the moment when an enemy wants to attack us.
  Senator Reid yesterday pointed to the terrible tragedy in India where 
the power system has gone out. There is no evidence there was a cyber 
attack, but I saw today that 600 million people are without 
electricity. It has had a terrible effect on quality of life, on the 
economy, et cetera. Unfortunately, this is what an enemy who is capable 
today could do to us, and they are out there.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The only reasonable conclusion one could draw is that 
it would be prudent to view, with some caution and some skepticism, the 
claims of folks who are hacked and penetrated at will--and who often 
usually don't even know it--that: Don't worry. Trust us. We can take 
care of this. Everything is fine.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend. And, of course, I agree. That is 
why we are legislating--but we are trying to legislate as minimally as 
we possibly can--to begin to solve this problem.
  I yield the floor. The Senator from Maryland is here. The Senator 
from North Dakota is here.
  Mr. HOEVEN. I thank the Senator. I certainly want to accommodate the 
schedule.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. In the order of fairness, we yield to my friend from 
North Dakota.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota.


                                 Energy

  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I rise to speak as if in morning 
business on the subject of energy.
  I commend my colleagues for their excellent work on cyber. I look 
forward to working with them, and I thank them for the incredible 
amount of work and diligence they are putting into this extremely 
important effort. I rise this morning to speak on the incredible 
importance of energy security for our country.
  Last week I introduced the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act along with 30 
sponsors on the legislation. It is a comprehensive plan for energy 
security for our country. When I say energy security, what I mean is 
producing more energy than we consume; getting our Nation to energy 
security by not only producing enough energy for our needs, but even 
beyond that. It is absolutely doable. There is no question we can do 
it.
  It is about pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy, and I mean truly 
pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy; not saying it and then picking 
certain types of energy we want and don't want but, instead, creating a 
climate and a national comprehensive energy policy that truly empowers 
private investment to develop all of our energy resources and all types 
of energy.
  The Domestic Energy and Jobs Act is actually a package of energy 
bills. Many of these have already passed the House, and we have 
introduced them now in the Senate as well--13 separate pieces of 
legislation pulled together into this energy package, with energy 
leaders from both the House and the Senate. It clearly demonstrates 
that we have a strategy, we have a comprehensive energy plan to move 
our country, and it is ready to go.
  If we look at the situation right now, there are hundreds of billions 
of dollars of private investment, of capital that would be invested in 
energy projects in this country, but they are being held up. These 
projects are being held on the sidelines because of the inability to be 
permitted or because of burdensome regulation. We need to create the 
kind of approach, the kind of business climate, the kind of energy 
policy that will unleash that private investment. That is exactly what 
this legislation does.
  First, it reduces the regulatory burden so these stalled energy 
projects--again, hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment, 
not government spending but in private investment--that would move 
forward with energy projects that would not only develop more energy 
more cost effectively and more dependably, but also with better 
environmental stewardship, deploying the latest, greatest technology 
that would produce the energy, and do it with better environmental 
stewardship--not only for this country but actually leading the world 
to more energy production with better environmental stewardship.
  But these projects are held up either because they can't get 
permitted or because they can't get through the regulatory redtape to 
get started and get going. This legislation cuts through that.
  It also helps us develop the vital infrastructure we need for energy 
development. A great example is the Keystone XL Pipeline, a $7 billion 
1,700-mile pipeline that would move oil from Canada to our refineries 
in the United States, but that would also move oil from my home State--
100,000 barrels a day for starters--to refineries. We need that vital 
infrastructure. That is just one example.
  This legislation also develops our resources on public lands as well 
as private lands. So we are talking about expedited permitting both 
onshore and offshore, on private lands and on public

[[Page 12967]]

lands, including for renewables. It sets realistic goals. It sets a 
market-based approach that would truly foster all of our energy 
resources rather than picking winners and losers. It would also put a 
freeze and require a study of rules that are driving up gasoline prices 
that are hitting families and businesses across this country. And it 
includes legislation that Senator Murkowski of Alaska has added to our 
package that would require an inventory of critical minerals in the 
United States and set policies to develop them as a key part of 
developing a comprehensive energy approach and a comprehensive energy 
plan for our country.
  So what is the impact? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in March of last 
year put forward a report. In that report they showed there are more 
than 350 energy projects nationwide that are being held up either due 
to inability to get permitted or regulatory burden, as I have 
described--more than 350 projects--that if we could just greenlight 
these projects, they would generate $1.1 trillion in gross domestic 
product and create 1.9 million jobs a year just in the construction 
phase.
  So this legislation truly is about energy--more energy, better 
technology, and better environmental stewardship. But it is also very 
much about creating jobs--creating jobs at a time when we have more 
than 8.2 percent unemployment, more than 13 million people out of work 
and looking for work. This will create an incredible number of jobs. It 
is about creating economic growth.
  Look at our debt and our deficit. Our debt is now approaching $16 
trillion. We need to get this economy going and growing to reduce that 
deficit and reduce that debt along with controlling our spending. But 
we need economic growth to get on top of that debt and deficit. As I 
described, just the 350 projects alone and $1.1 trillion in GDP to help 
create that economic growth, to put people to work, and help reduce our 
deficit and our debt.
  Let's talk about national security. The reality is with the kind of 
approach I am putting forward in the United States and working together 
with our closest friend and ally Canada, we can get to energy security 
without a doubt in 5 to 7 years. That means producing more energy than 
we consume within 5 to 7 years. Think how important that is.
  Look what is going on in the Middle East. Look what is going on in 
Syria. What is going to happen there? Look at what is going on in Iran 
and their efforts to pursue a nuclear weapon and what is going to 
happen with the Strait of Hormuz. An incredible amount of oil goes 
through that area. Look at what is happening in Egypt with the Muslim 
Brotherhood. Do we really want to be dependent on the Middle East for 
our oil?
  I think the American people have said very clearly no, and we don't 
have to be. We just need the right approach to make it happen right 
here and to work with our closest friend and ally, Canada.
  The reality is developing our energy resources is an incredible 
opportunity, and we need to seize it right now, with both hands. We can 
do it. That is exactly the plan we are putting forward.
  Earlier this year we passed legislation through the House and through 
the Senate in conjunction with the payroll tax credit legislation. 
Attached to it we required the President to make a decision on the 
Keystone XL Pipeline. He chose to turn it down. Shortly after that, the 
Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, went to China. He met with 
Chairman Wu and China's energy leaders, and he signed a memorandum of 
agreement. That memorandum of agreement between China and Canada called 
for more economic cooperation and more energy development, with China 
working in conjunction with Canada.
  Just last week, CNOOC--one of China's largest government-controlled 
companies--made a $15 billion tender offer for the Nexen Oil Company, a 
large oil company in Canada, to purchase their interests in the 
Canadian oil sands. It also includes mineral interests offshore, lease 
interests offshore of the United States in the gulf region, as well as 
in the North Sea area. But primarily it is an acquisition by the 
Chinese of huge amounts of tracts in the oil sands in Canada.
  So just what we said: If we don't work with Canada on projects such 
as the Keystone XL Pipeline, the oil that is produced in Canada, 
instead of going to the United States will go to China or Americans 
will be put in the position of buying Canadian oil from the Chinese 
because of a failure to act on key projects such as the Keystone XL 
Pipeline because we are not acting on the kind of energy policy we are 
putting forward right here.
  Ask the American people what they want. What they want is that we 
move forward with the energy package we put forward, and we need to do 
it. If we check gas prices, they are now back up to $3.50 a gallon 
national average. When the current administration took office, it was 
$1.85 national average per gallon. That is a 90-percent increase. What 
ramifications does that have for our economy? What ramifications does 
that have for small businesses? What ramifications does that have for 
hard-working American families? I think we all know the answer to that.
  The time to move forward is now. It couldn't be more clear. We 
control our own destiny. We need to take action. We need to move 
forward on the kind of energy plans that truly benefit our people and 
our country. I call on my colleagues to join me in this effort.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk 
about cyber security, the pending Lieberman-Collins bill, and the need 
to act--and the need to act before we adjourn for the August break.
  I come today to the floor as I did when I spoke yesterday. I don't 
come as a Democrat, I come as an American. If ever there was an issue 
where we have to forget if we are red States or blue States, it is this 
issue.
  I am going to stop my remarks. I note the Senator from Arizona is on 
the Senate floor, and I know he was scheduled to speak at 12:45. I was 
scheduled to speak at 11:30. I have about 10 minutes. I just want to 
acknowledge where we are.
  So resuming my comments, Madam President, what I wanted to say is 
this: This is when we have to forget we are red States or blue States, 
we have to forget what we have on our bumper stickers, and we have to 
come together and not be the red State party or the blue State party 
but to be the red, white, and blue party for the United States of 
America. We must put aside partisan differences and ideological 
viewpoints. We need to act, and we need to act in the defense of the 
United States of America.
  The Senate has a great opportunity today and tomorrow to pass 
legislation to protect, defend, and deter a cyber attack on the 
critical infrastructure of the United States of America.
  What do I mean by critical infrastructure? It is our electrical power 
grid, our financial services, our water supplies. It is those things 
that are the bread and butter of keeping America, its businesses, and 
its families going. Through voluntary participation, we can work with 
the private sector that owns and operates the critical infrastructure 
to keep our critical infrastructure hardened and resilient against 
attack.
  I worry about the possibility of an attack. We know there are already 
attacks going on, particularly in our financial services. We know our 
personal identities are being hacked, and we know small business is 
being attacked. I will give examples later on. Not only do I worry 
about an attack, I equally worry about our inertia, where we do 
nothing.
  I bring to the attention of the Senate and all those watching that 
Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense, called our cyber vulnerability 
our potential digital Pearl Harbor. The Presiding Officer is from New 
York. We don't want a cyber 9/11. We can act now. We can act when it is 
in our power to protect, defend, and deter these attacks. That is what 
I want. I want us to have a sense of urgency. I want us to go to the 
edge of our chair. I want us to put our best thinking on to be able to 
do the kind of job we need to do to find a sensible center on how we 
can do that.

[[Page 12968]]

  Right now our adversaries are watching us. We are debating on how we 
will protect America from cyber attacks, and it looks like we are doing 
nothing. When all is said and done, more gets said than gets done. Our 
adversaries don't have to spy on us. They can look at the Senate floor 
and say: What the heck are they doing? What are they going to do? They 
are going to look at us and say: There they go again.
  We know our own inability to pass legislation, our own partisan 
gridlock and deadlock works for our predatory enemies in a positive 
way. They are saying, well, our first line of attack is for them to do 
nothing. They are thinking how they can make sure the critical 
infrastructure is vulnerable. How can they weaken the critical 
infrastructure? One way is by not passing legislation and putting in 
those hardened, resilient ways to protect, defend, and deter. Our 
adversaries are laughing right this minute. They just have to watch us. 
Well, this is no laughing matter.
  What is the intent of a cyber attack? What is the intent? Is it the 
same intent as a nuclear attack? Is it the same attempt as flying into 
the World Trade Center? It is all the same. It is to create chaos, it 
is to create civil instability, and it is to create economic 
catastrophe that makes 9/11 look minuscule.
  Just think about a cyber attack in which our grid goes down. Think of 
a blackout in New York. Think of a blackout in Baltimore. Remember when 
we did the cyber exercise here where it showed what would happen? The 
stop lights go down, the lights go out in the hospitals, the 
respirators go off, business shuts down, commerce shuts down, 9-1-1 
shuts down, America is shut down, and we will be powerless and impotent 
to put it back on in any quick and expeditious manner.
  Right now we are in the situation where we have an early missile 
detection. We know the cyber attack will come. We need to do something. 
With this cyber attack, think of the chaos of no electricity. Just 
think of it. We have all lived through blackouts, and we had a terrible 
freak storm here a few weeks ago. No matter how late Pepco, BG&E, and 
Dominion was in responding, they can get the electricity back on. What 
happens if they can't get the electricity back on? What happens if they 
can't get it back on for weeks or longer? There we are powerless, 
impotent, and the President of the United States is wondering what to 
do.
  Remember, the attack is to humiliate, intimidate, and cripple: 
humiliate by making us look powerless, intimidate by showing there is 
this power over us, and to cripple our functioning as a society. I find 
it chilling.
  We saw an attack on a little country called Estonia. That is how I 
got into this. I was sitting on the Intelligence Committee--I can say 
it now because it has been more than 5 years ago--and it was brought to 
my attention that Estonia--a brave little country that resisted 
communism, challenged the Soviet Union, and is now a part of NATO--was 
being attacked. The electricity was going off around Estonia. We 
thought, from the Intelligence Committee, it would be the first cyber 
attack on a NATO nation, and we were going to trigger the NATO Charter 
article V that an attack on one is an attack on all.
  Thanks to the United States of America and our British allies, we had 
the technical know-how to go in and help them. Who is going to have the 
technical know-how to help us? We have the technical know-how right now 
to make our critical infrastructure hardened and resilient. We 
shouldn't harden our positions so we can't get to a resilient critical 
infrastructure.
  I could go on with examples. I know my colleague from Arizona wants 
to come to the floor, but I just want to say one more thing. I have 
been involved in this from not only my work on the Intelligence 
Committee, but we fund the Justice Department through the 
Appropriations Committee, and they are very involved and hands on with 
the policy issues around the FBI.
  Now, if Director Mueller were here, he would say the FBI currently 
has 7,600 pending bank robbery cases. Guess what. He has 9,000 pending 
cyber banking attacks. There are more cyber heists than there are 
regular heists. That doesn't make it right.
  Now, is a cyber attack coming? Is it something out of Buck Rogers or 
Betty Rogers or the cyber Betty Crocker cookbook or whatever? The 
NASDAQ, as the gentlelady from New York knows, the NASDAQ and New York 
Stock Exchange has already been attacked. Hackers repeatedly penetrated 
the computer networks at the NASDAQ stock market. The New York Stock 
Exchange has been the target of cyber attacks. That sounds so vague 
but, remember, successful attempts to shut down or steal our 
information are going on every day.
  Madam Chair, do you remember in 2010 the Dow Jones plunged 1,000 
points because of a flash crash? That was a result of turbulent 
trading. That can be manipulated by cyber, and it could happen several 
times a week. What are we going to do?
  Our banking industry clears $7 trillion worth of financial goods, 
products, and actual real money every day. Imagine what would happen if 
that was thrown into turmoil or shut down. I don't want to go through 
grim example after grim example, but let me say this: Good people in 
this body have been working on both sides of the aisle.
  We are close, and I urge my colleagues now: Let's either vote for 
cloture or come to a regular agreement to be able to offer amendments. 
For those who worry about the costs, for those who worry about 
regulation, for those who worry about homeland security, I understand 
that. That is why I would be willing to sunset the bill so we can 
always look ahead and reevaluate this. I want everyone to know if a 
cyber attack comes and happens to the United States and we have failed 
to act, we will overreact, we will overregulate, and we will overspend.
  Why do I have a sense of urgency right now? Let me say this: When we 
adjourn tomorrow for the August break, we don't come back until 
September 10. We will go out somewhere around October 1. That means if 
we don't act by tomorrow or Friday, we will essentially only have about 
14 working days in September to do this. Well, we can't let this go.
  I conclude my remarks by saying this: To my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle, let's be the red, white, and blue party. Let's come to 
the middle ground. Let's do what we need to do to protect and defend 
the United States of America. There are good people who have been 
working on this. Some have extraordinary national security credentials. 
Let's put our best heads together and come up with the best amendments. 
Let's come up with the best protections of the United States of 
America, and let's do it by tomorrow night.
  God bless America. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask to engage in a colloquy with the 
Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, the Senator from South Carolina, 
Mr. Lindsey Graham, and if he wants to, the Senator from Indiana, Mr. 
Coats.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, before I go to the issue we want to 
discuss, I want to point out in this debate that has become so 
impassioned that the issue of cyber security is one of transcendent 
importance, and I want to again reiterate my respect, appreciation, and 
affection for both Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins.
  I also point out to my colleagues that the people who are directly 
affected by this--and that is the business community of the United 
States of America--are unalterably opposed to the legislation in its 
present form. They are the ones who will be affected most dramatically 
by cyber security legislation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which 
represents 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, 
sector, and region, has a strong letter which supports the legislation 
we have proposed.
  I finally would just like to say that I have had hours and hours of 
meetings with my colleagues on both sides of the

[[Page 12969]]

aisle trying to work this out. I believe we can work this out. We 
understand that cyber security is important and of transcendent 
importance. But to somehow allege that the business community, the 3 
million businesses in America, should be left out of this discussion, 
of course, is not appropriate nor do I believe it will result in 
effective cyber security legislation.


                        National Security Leaks

  I really came to the floor today to talk about the issue of the 
leaks, the leaks which have directly jeopardized America's national 
security. At the Aspen Security Forum, just in the last few days, the 
head of Special Operations Command, Admiral McRaven, observed that the 
recent national security leaks have put lives at risk and may 
ultimately cost America its lives unless there is an effective 
crackdown. Admiral McRaven, the head of our Special Operations Command 
said:

       We need to do the best we can to clamp down because sooner 
     or later it is going to cost people their lives or it is 
     going to cost us our national security.

  This is another national security issue, my friends, and I appreciate 
very much the fact that Governor Romney rightly referred to these leaks 
as contemptible and a betrayal of our national interests.
  I wish to point out to my colleagues that, yes, there are supposedly 
investigations going on and, according to media, hundreds of people are 
being interviewed. Well, I am no lawyer. I am no prosecutor. Senator 
Graham may have some experience in that. But what about the 2009 G20 
economic summit when, according to the New York Times journalist David 
Sanger, ``a senior official in the National Security Council'' tapped 
him on the shoulder and brought him to the Presidential suite in the 
Pittsburgh hotel where President Obama was staying and where ``most of 
the rest of the national security staff was present.'' There the 
journalist was allowed to review satellite images and other evidence 
that confirmed the existence of a secret nuclear site in Iran.
  I wonder how many people have the key to the Presidential suite in 
that Pittsburgh, PA hotel? We might want to start there. Instead, we 
have two prosecutors, one of whom was a strong and great supporter of 
the President of the United States. And the same people--I am talking 
about the Vice President of the United States and others--who strongly 
supported a special counsel in the case of Valerie Plame and, of 
course, the Abramoff case. We need a special counsel to find out who 
was responsible for these leaks.
  I ask my colleague Senator Graham if he has additional comments on 
this issue. It has receded somewhat in the media, but the damage that 
has been done to our national security is significant. It has put lives 
at risk, and it has betrayed our allies. This is an issue we cannot let 
go away until those who are responsible are held accountable for these 
actions.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, my comment, in response to the question 
Senator McCain has, is what we do today becomes precedent for tomorrow. 
So are we going to sit on the sidelines here and allow the Attorney 
General--who is under siege by our colleagues in the House about the 
way he has handled Fast and Furious and other matters--to appoint two 
U.S. attorneys who have to answer to him to investigate allegations 
against the very White House that appointed him? The reason so many 
Democrats wrote to President Bush and said, You cannot possibly 
investigate the Scooter Libby-Valerie Plame leak because it involves 
people very close to you--well, let's read some of the letters. Biden, 
Daschle, Schumer, and Levin letter to President Bush, October 9, 2003:

       We are at risk of seeing this investigation so compromised 
     that those responsible for this national security breach will 
     never be identified and prosecuted. Public confidence in the 
     integrity of this investigation would be substantially 
     bolstered by the appointment of a special counsel.

  Senator Biden:

       I think they should appoint a special prosecutor, but if 
     they're not going to do that, which I suspect they're not, is 
     get the information out as quick as they possibly can. This 
     is not a minor thing . . . There's been a federal crime 
     committed. The question is who did it? And the President 
     should do everything in his power to demonstrate that there's 
     an urgency to find that out.

  Then he goes on later and says:

       There's been a federal crime committed. You can't possibly 
     investigate yourself because people close to you are 
     involved.

  In the Abramoff scandal, which involved Jack Abramoff, a person very 
close to House leadership and some people in the Bush administration, 
and our Democratic colleagues, 34 of them, said the following:

       FBI officials have said that the Abramoff investigation 
     ``involves systematic corruption within the highest levels of 
     government.'' Such an assertion indicates extraordinary 
     circumstances and it is in the public interest that you act 
     under your existing statutory authority to appoint a special 
     counsel.

  So our Democratic colleagues back during the Bush administration 
said, We don't trust you enough to investigate compromising national 
security by having an agent outed allegedly by members of your 
administration. We don't trust the Republican Party apparatus enough to 
investigate Jack Abramoff, because you are so close to him, and you 
should have a special counsel appointed.
  Well, guess what. They did.
  Here is what I am saying. I don't trust this White House to 
investigate themselves. I think this reeks of a coverup. I think the 
highest levels of this government surrounding the President, 
intentionally, over a 45-day period, leaked various stories regarding 
our national security programs, to make the administration look strong 
on national security. I don't think it is an accident that we are 
reading in the paper about efforts by the administration and our allies 
to use cyber attacks against the Iranian nuclear program as a way to 
try to head Israel off from using military force. I don't know if it 
happened, but the details surrounding the cooperation between us and 
Israel and how we engaged in cyber attacks against the Iranian nuclear 
program are chilling and something we should not read about in the 
paper.
  The second thing we read about in the paper was how we disrupted the 
underwear bomber plot where there was a double agent who had 
infiltrated an al-Qaida cell, I believe it was in Yemen, and how we 
were able to break that up; and the man was given a suicide vest that 
was new technology and couldn't be detected by the current screening 
devices at the airports, and how we were able to basically infiltrate 
that cell, and God knows the damage done to our allies and that 
operation.
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my friend, isn't it also true that this 
individual had some 23 family members whose lives were also placed in 
danger because of the revelation of his identity?
  Mr. GRAHAM. That is what we have been told in the paper.
  We also have a story about the kill list--a blow-by-blow description 
of how President Obama personally oversees who gets killed by drones in 
Pakistan, and at the end of the day, I am not so sure that is something 
we should all be reading about.
  But if that is not enough, what about releasing the Pakistani 
doctor--the person who allegedly helped us find bin Laden, and his role 
in this effort to find bin Laden is also in the paper, and now he is in 
jail in Pakistan.
  The sum total is that the leaks have been devastating. They have put 
people's lives at risk. They have compromised our national security, 
unlike anything I have seen, and people expect us to sit on the 
sidelines and let the White House investigate itself? No way.
  Those who wrote letters in the past suggesting that Bush could not 
impartially investigate himself, where are they today? Is this the 
rule: We can't trust Republicans, but we can trust Democratic 
administrations to get to the bottom of things they are involved in up 
to their eyebrows?
  Do we think it is an accident that all of these books quote senior 
White House officials? There is a review of one of the books the 
Senator from Arizona mentioned that talked about the unprecedented 
access to the National Security Adviser. There is a vignette in one of 
the books where the Secretary

[[Page 12970]]

of Defense goes up to the National Security Adviser and suggests a new 
communications strategy when it comes to the programs we are talking 
about: Shut the F up. Well, that makes great reading, but at the end of 
the day, should we be reading about all this? People's lives are at 
stake. Programs have been compromised. Our allies are very reluctant 
now to do business with us.
  This was, in my view, an intentional effort by people at the highest 
level in the White House to leak these stories for political purposes. 
And to accept that Eric Holder is going to appoint two people within 
his sphere of influence and call it a day is acceptable. That is not 
going to happen. We are going to do everything we can to right this 
ship, and we are asking no more of our Democratic colleagues than they 
asked of the Bush administration.
  To our Democratic colleagues: How do you justify this? How do you 
justify that you couldn't investigate Abramoff without a special 
counsel and you couldn't investigate what Scooter Libby may or may not 
have done without a special counsel, but it is OK not to have one here? 
How do you do that?
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Absolutely.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. The Senator asked whether this side would like to explain 
our position. I would be happy to do it at this point, but I can wait 
until my colleagues finish their colloquy, so it is their choice.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Whatever the Senator from Illinois wishes to do. I am 
dying to hear how my Democratic colleagues think it is good government 
not to have a special independent counsel investigate the most damaging 
national security leak in decades. I am dying to hear the explanation.
  Mr. DURBIN. There is no need to die. I hope the Senator from South 
Carolina will continue living a good life because he is such a great 
Senator. But I am asking if my colleague wants me to join in this 
dialogue or would he rather make his presentation?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I tell you what. Why don't we let my colleague 
speak, and then the Senator from Illinois will have all the time he 
needs. What does my colleague, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, 
think?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Well, I am dying to hear his explanation too, let me 
say that.
  First of all, let me say that I join in with everything my two 
colleagues have said with respect to, No. 1, the volume of the leaks 
that have come out in recent weeks. We all know this town has a 
tendency to leak information from time to time, but never in the volume 
and never with the sensitivity of the leaks we have read about on the 
front page of newspapers around the country as we have seen in the last 
few weeks.
  Irrespective of where they came from, to have folks who may be 
implicated in the White House, and the White House appointing the two 
individuals who have been charged with the duty of prosecuting this 
investigation, reeks of ethical issues. I don't know these two U.S. 
attorneys, but everything I know about them is they are dadgum good 
prosecutors and they are good lawyers. But why would we even put them 
in the position of having to investigate in effect the individual who 
appointed them to the position they are in? That is why we are arguing 
that a special counsel is, without question, the best way to go. I am 
interested to hear the response from my friend from Illinois to that 
issue.
  Let me talk about something else for a minute, and that is the impact 
these leaks have had on the intelligence community. The No. 1 thing 
that individuals who go on the intelligence committees in both the 
House and the Senate are told--and I know because I have served on both 
of them and continue to serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee--is 
to be careful what you say. Be careful and make sure you don't 
inadvertently--and obviously advertently--reveal classified 
information. Be sure that in your comments you never reveal sources and 
methods.
  Well, guess what. The individuals who were involved in these leaks 
were very overt in the release of sources and methods with respect to 
the issues Senator Graham referred to as having been leaked. Not only 
that, but lives were put in danger, particularly the life of the 
individual who was an asset who worked very closely with respect to the 
underwear bomber issue. We know that to be a fact.
  But there is also a secondary issue, and that is this: We have 
partners around the world we deal with in the intelligence community 
every single day, and we depend on those partners and they depend on us 
to provide them with information we have and likewise that they give to 
us. A classic example was detailed of one of these particular leaks on 
the front page of the New York Times. Today why in the world would any 
of our partners in the intelligence community around the world--those 
partners who have men and women on the front lines who are putting 
their life in harm's way and in danger every single day to gather 
intelligence information and share that information with us--why would 
they continue to do that if they are now concerned about that 
information being written about on the front page of newspapers inside 
the United States and blasted all over television or wherever it may 
be?
  The answer is pretty simple. Very honestly, there are some strong 
considerations being given by some of our partners as to how much 
information they should share with us. That creates a very negative 
atmosphere within the intelligence world.
  Lastly, let me say that we dealt in the Intelligence Committee with 
our authorization bill recently in which we have tried to address this 
issue from a punishment standpoint.
  There are certain things that individuals are required to do when 
they leave the intelligence community and go write a book. One of those 
things is they have to present their book to an independent panel of 
intelligence experts, and that panel is to review the information and 
then decide whether any of it is classified and shall not be released. 
In one of the instances we have, one of those individuals never 
submitted his book to that panel. In another instance, an individual 
submitted his book to the panel, and the panel said: You need to be 
careful in these areas. And the advice from that panel was pretty well 
disregarded.
  One of the provisions in our bill says if someone does that, if 
someone fails to submit their book to that panel, or if they disregard 
what that panel tells them to do, then they are going to be subject to 
penalties. Part of those penalties include the possible removal of 
their right to a pension from the Federal Government--the portion the 
government is obligated to pay them, not what they have contributed.
  Our intelligence bill is being criticized by some individuals out 
there. And guess who it is? It is the media and it is the White House. 
What does that tell you about their fear and their participation in the 
release of classified information?
  So this issue is of critical importance. It simply has to stop for 
any number of national security reasons, but the ones that have been 
addressed by my colleagues obviously are to be highlighted. I look 
forward to whatever comments the Senator from Illinois may have with 
respect to justifying--I know he is not going to justify the leaks 
because I know him too well, but whatever his justification is for 
proceeding in a prosecution manner the way the Department of Justice is 
going versus what the Bush administration did and appointing a special 
counsel in a case that, by the way, pales in comparison to the leaks 
that took place in this particular instance.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, before we turn to our friend from Illinois 
for his, I am sure, convincing explanation as to why a special counsel 
is not required, even though it was, in the opinion of his side, in a 
previous situation, I want to just, again--and the Senator from Georgia 
and the Senator from South Carolina will also corroborate the fact that 
we have been working and working, having meeting after meeting after 
meeting, on the issue of cyber security.

[[Page 12971]]

  We believe we have narrowed it down to three or four differences that 
could be worked out over time. Among them is liability. Another one is 
information sharing. But I think it is also important for us to 
recognize in this debate the people who are most directly affected in 
many respects are the business communities, and it is important that we 
have the input and satisfy, at least to a significant degree, those 
concerns.
  There are those who allege that a piece of legislation is better than 
no legislation. I have been around this town for a long time. I have 
seen bad legislation which is far worse than no legislation. So we 
understand certainly--I and members of the Armed Services Committee and 
others understand--the importance of this issue.
  We also understand that those who are directly affected by it--those 
concerns need to be satisfied as well. I commit to my colleagues to 
continue nonstop rounds of meetings and discussions to try to get this 
issue resolved. To this moment, there are still significant 
differences.
  I say to my friend from Illinois, I look forward to hearing his 
convincing discussion.
  I thank the Senator and yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Illinois 
be involved in the colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. I did not know if the Senator wanted to make his 
unanimous consent request that he came to the floor to make.
  Mr. McCAIN. No.
  Mr. DURBIN. The Senator is not going to make it?
  Mr. McCAIN. No. The Senator will object.
  Mr. DURBIN. Yes, I will.
  Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Arizona. 
Occasionally, historically, on the floor of the Senate there is a 
debate, and this may be one of those moments. I hope it is because it 
is a worthy topic.
  Let's get down to the bottom line. I have served on the Intelligence 
Committee, as some of my colleagues have. We know the important work 
done by the intelligence community to keep America safe. They literally 
risk their lives every day for us, and they are largely invisible. We 
do not see them at the military parades and other places where we 
acknowledge those warriors who risk their lives, but these men and 
women do it in so many different ways.
  When I spent 4 years on the Senate Intelligence Committee--and my 
colleagues, I am sure, feel the same--I went out of my way to make sure 
I was careful with classified information so as to continue to protect 
this country and never endanger those who were helping us keep it safe 
all around the world.
  So the obvious question raised by the Republican side of the of the 
aisle is whether this President, President Barack Obama, thinks 
differently; whether President Obama believes we should cut corners and 
not be so careful when it comes to the leaking of classified 
information.
  My answer to that is look at the record. Look at the record and ask 
this basic question: When it comes to prosecuting those believed to 
have been guilty of leaks of classified information, which President of 
the United States has prosecuted more suspected individuals than any 
other President, Democrat or Republican? Barack Obama.
  On six different occasions--five in the Department of Justice and one 
in the Department of Defense--they pursued the active prosecution of 
those they believed were guilty of leaking classified information that 
might endanger the United States.
  Let me add another personal observation. It was last year when my 
friend Bill Daley, then-Chief of Staff to President Obama, came to 
Chicago for a luncheon. It was a nice day. We had a nice luncheon. It 
was very successful. He said he had to get back to Washington. He was 
in a big hurry. He never said why. He told me later--he told me much 
later--after this occurred: I had to get back because we had a 
classified meeting about hunting down Osama bin Laden. We were sworn to 
secrecy at every level of government so that we never, ever disclosed 
information that we were even thinking about that possibility.
  Bill Daley took it seriously. The President takes it seriously. 
Anyone in those positions of power will take it seriously. To suggest 
otherwise on the floor of the Senate is just plain wrong, and it raises 
a question about this President's commitment to the Nation, which I 
think is improper and cannot be backed up with the evidence.
  Now, let's look at the evidence when it comes to the appointment of a 
special prosecutor. Let me take you back to those moments when a 
special prosecutor named Patrick Fitzgerald from the Northern District 
of Illinois was chosen to investigate the leak of classified 
information.
  Let me put it in historical context. We had invaded Iraq. We did it 
based on assertions by the Bush-Cheney administration about the danger 
to the United States. One of those assertions dealt with Africa and 
certain yellow cake chemicals that might be used for nuclear weapons 
and whether they were going to fall into the hands of the Iraqi 
leadership.
  It was one of the arguments--there were many: weapons of mass 
destruction, and so forth, that turned out to be totally false--leading 
us into a war which has cost us dearly in terms of human lives and our 
own treasure.
  So one person spoke out. Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who identified 
himself as a Republican, said: I do not believe there is any evidence 
to back up the assertion about the yellow cake coming out of Africa.
  Well, he was punished. Do you remember how he was punished? He was 
punished when someone decided to out his wife Valerie Plame. Valerie 
Plame had served as an intelligence agent for the United States to 
protect our Nation, and someone decided that in order to get even with 
Joe Wilson they would disclose the fact that his wife worked in the 
intelligence agencies.
  Then what happened? If you will remember, when that story broke, the 
intelligence community of the United States of America said: We have 
been betrayed. If one of our own can be outed in a political debate in 
Washington, are any of us safe? A legitimate question.
  So there was an obvious need to find out who did it, who disclosed 
her identity, endangering her life, the life of every person who had 
worked with her, and so many other intelligence agents.
  Mr. President, do you recall what happened? I do. The Attorney 
General of the United States, John Ashcroft, recused himself from this 
investigation. It was the right thing for him to do because the 
questions about this disclosure of her identity went to the top of the 
administration. He recused himself and appointed Patrick Fitzgerald, 
the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, a 
professional, a professional prosecutor with the U.S. Department of 
Justice.
  Well, the investigation went on for a long time. At the end of the 
investigation, the Chief of Staff of the Vice President of the United 
States was found to have violated a law. That came out, and eventually 
we learned the identity of who actually disclosed the name of Valerie 
Plame. It was a serious issue, one that called for a special counsel, 
and, if I remember correctly, there were even Republicans at that point 
joining Democrats saying: Let's get to the bottom of this. If this goes 
all the way to the top, let's find out who is responsible for it. So it 
was the appropriate thing to do.
  Now, take a look at this situation. This President, who has activated 
the prosecution of six individuals suspected of leaking classified 
information, takes very seriously the information that was disclosed 
related to the al-Qaida techniques and all the things they were using 
to threaten the United States.
  What has he done as a result of it? Let's be specific because I 
really have to call into question some of the statements that have been 
made on the floor. To say that the administration is covering this up, 
as to this leak, is just plain wrong.
  At this point, the Department of Justice has appointed two highly 
respected

[[Page 12972]]

and experienced prosecutors with proven records of independence in the 
exercise of their duties. U.S. Attorney Machen has recently overseen a 
number of public corruption prosecutions in the District of Columbia. 
U.S. Attorney Rosenstein has overseen a number of national security 
investigations, including one of the five leak investigations that have 
been prosecuted under this President. The Justice Department has 
complete confidence in their ability to conduct thorough and 
independent investigations into these matters in close collaboration 
with career prosecutors and agents.
  This is not being swept under the rug. This is not being ignored. 
This is being taken seriously by this administration, as every leak of 
classified information will be taken seriously.
  I know it is an election year. We are fewer than 100 days away from 
the election, and I know the floor of the Senate is used by both 
parties this close to the election. But I want to make it clear this 
President has a record of commitment to protecting the men and women 
who gather intelligence for America. He has a record of prosecuting 
more suspects for leaks of this information than any other President in 
history. He has, through his Attorney General, appointed two career 
criminal prosecutors to look into this case and said they will have the 
resources and authority they need to get to the bottom of it. That is 
the way to do it.
  Will the day come when we say perhaps a special counsel is needed? I 
will not ever rule that out. Perhaps that day will come. But it is 
wrong to come to the floor and question this President's commitment to 
our intelligence community. It is wrong to come to the floor and 
question the credentials of these two men who have performed so well in 
the service of the Department of Justice in years gone by.
  I thought Senator McCain was going to make a unanimous consent 
request. If he wishes to, let me yield to him at this point.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would be glad to respond to my friend.
  First of all, obviously, he is in disagreement with the chairperson 
of the Intelligence Committee because she said these leaks were the 
worst in the 11 years she has been a member of the Senate Intelligence 
Committee. So, obviously, the Abramoff and the Valerie Plame 
investigations are not nearly as serious, and they certainly were not 
when we look at the incredible damage, according to Admiral McRaven, 
according to anyone who is an observer of the incredible damage these 
leaks have caused.
  Again, the chairperson of the Intelligence Committee said it is the 
worst she has ever seen. Admiral McRaven, as I said, said these have 
put lives at risk and may ultimately cost Americans their lives.
  I wonder if my colleague from Illinois is concerned when, according 
to his book, Mr. Sanger said: ``A senior official in the National 
Security Council'' tapped him on the shoulder and brought him to the 
Presidential suite in the Pittsburgh hotel where President Obama was 
staying, and--I am quoting from Mr. Sanger's book--where ``most of the 
rest of the national security staff was present.'' There, the 
journalist was apparently allowed to review satellite images and other 
``evidence'' that confirmed the existence of a secret nuclear site in 
Iran.
  When leaks take place around this town, the first question you have 
to ask is, Who benefits? Who benefits from them? Obviously someone who 
wants to take a journalist up to the presidential suite would make it 
pretty easy for us to narrow down whom we should interview first. Who 
had the key to the presidential suite? Who uses the presidential suite 
in a hotel in Pittsburgh? These leaks are the most damaging that have 
taken place in my time in the Senate and before that in the U.S. 
military. Yes, six people have been prosecuted. Do you know at what 
level? A private. The lowest level people have been prosecuted by this 
administration. And this administration says they have to interview 
hundreds of people in the bottom-up process.
  I can guarantee you one thing, I will tell the Senator from Illinois 
now, there will not be any definitive conclusion in the investigation 
before the election in November. That does not mean to me that they are 
not doing their job, although it is clear that one of these prosecutors 
was active in the Obama campaign, was a contributor to the Obama 
campaign. I am not saying that individual is not of the highest 
caliber. I am saying that would lead people to ask a reasonable 
question, and that is whether that individual is entirely objective.
  Americans need an objective investigation by someone they can trust, 
just as then-Senator Biden and then-Senator Obama asked for in these 
previous incidents, which, in my view, were far less serious and, in 
the view of the chairperson of the Intelligence Committee, are far more 
severe than those that were previously investigated. I would be glad to 
have my colleague respond to that.
  Mr. DURBIN. First, let me say that whatever the rank of the 
individual--private, specialist, chief petty officer--if they are 
responsible for leaking classified information, they need to be 
investigated and prosecuted, if guilty.
  Mr. McCAIN. Absolutely.
  Mr. DURBIN. So the fact that a private is being investigated should 
not get him off the hook. I would----
  Mr. McCAIN. I do not think it gets him off the hook. I think it has 
some significance as compared to this kind of egregious breach of 
security that has taken place at the highest level. We know that.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would say to my friend from Arizona, if I am not 
mistaken, it was a noncommissioned officer at best and maybe not an 
officer in the Army who is being prosecuted for the Wiki leaks. So 
let's not say that the rank of anyone being prosecuted in any way makes 
them guilty or innocent. We need to go to the source of the leak.
  Mr. McCAIN. No. But my friend would obviously acknowledge that if it 
is a private or a corporal or something, it has not nearly the gravity 
it does when a person with whom the Nation has placed much higher 
responsibilities commits this kind of breach.
  Mr. DURBIN. Of course. It should be taken to where it leads, period. 
But let me also ask--I do not know if quoting from a book on the floor 
means what was written in that book is necessarily true. Perhaps the 
Senator has his own independent information on that.
  Mr. McCAIN. But no one has challenged Mr. Sanger's depiction. No one 
in the administration has challenged his assertion that he was taken by 
``a senior official in the National Security Council to the 
presidential suite.'' No one has challenged that.
  Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator, I do not know if that has to 
do with the information that was ultimately leaked about al-Qaida. It 
seems as though it is a separate matter. But it should be taken 
seriously, period. What more does this President need to do to convince 
you other than to have more prosecutions than any President in history 
of those who have been believed to have leaked classified information?
  If you will come to the floor, as you said earlier--and I quote, the 
investigation is ``supposedly going on.'' I trust the administration 
that the investigation is going on. What evidence does the Senator have 
that it is not going on?
  Mr. McCAIN. I say to my friend, it is not a matter of trust, it is a 
matter of credibility because if an administration has the same 
argument that then-Senator Biden used and Senator Obama used in 
opposition to the administration investigating the Abramoff case and 
the Valerie Plame case--they argued that it is not a matter of trust, 
it is a matter of credibility with the American people whether an 
administration can actually investigate itself or should there be a 
credible outside counsel who would conduct this investigation, which 
would then have the necessary credibility, I think, with the American 
people. I think that there is a certain logic to that, I hope my 
colleague would admit.
  Mr. DURBIN. Let me say to the Senator that in that case, the Attorney 
General of the United States, John Ashcroft, recused himself--recused

[[Page 12973]]

himself. He said there was such an appearance of a conflict, if not a 
conflict, he was stepping aside. It is very clear under those 
circumstances that a special counsel is needed. In this case, there is 
no suggestion that the President, the Vice President, or the Attorney 
General was complicit in any leak. So to suggest otherwise, I have to 
say to Senator McCain, show me what you are bringing as proof.
  Mr. McCAIN. I am bringing you proof that this Attorney General has a 
significant credibility problem, and that problem is bred by a program 
called Fast and Furious where weapons were--under a program sponsored 
by the Justice Department----
  Mr. DURBIN. When did the program begin?
  Mr. McCAIN. Let me just finish my comment. A young American Border 
Patrol agent was murdered with weapons that were part of the Fast and 
Furious investigation. What has the Attorney General of the United 
States done? He has said that he will not come forward with any 
information that is requested by my colleagues in the House.
  So I would have to say that, at least in the House of Representatives 
and with many Americans and certainly with the family of Brian Terry, 
who was murdered, there is a credibility problem with this Attorney 
General of the United States.
  Mr. DURBIN. I say to my colleague and friend Senator McCain, I deeply 
regret the loss of any American life, particularly those in service of 
our country.
  Mr. McCAIN. I am convinced of that.
  Mr. DURBIN. And I feel exactly that about this individual and the 
loss to his family. But let's make sure the record is complete. The 
Fast and Furious program was not initiated by President Obama, it was 
started by President George W. Bush.
  Mr. McCAIN. Which, in my view, does not in any way impact the need 
for a full and complete investigation.
  Mr. DURBIN. Secondly, this Attorney General, Mr. Holder, has been 
brought before congressional committees time after time. I have been in 
the Senate Judiciary Committee when he has been questioned at length 
about Fast and Furious, and I am sure he has been called even more 
frequently before the House committees.
  Third, he has produced around 9,000 pages of documents, and Chairman 
Issa keeps saying: Not enough. We need more. Well, at some point it 
becomes clear he will never produce enough documents for them. And the 
House decided to find him in contempt for that. That is their decision. 
I do not think that was necessarily proper.
  But having said that, does that mean every decision from the 
Department of Justice from this point forward cannot be trusted?
  Mr. McCAIN. No. But what I am saying is that there is a significant 
credibility problem that the Attorney General of the United States has, 
at least with a majority of the House of Representatives----
  Mr. DURBIN. The Republican majority.
  Mr. McCAIN. On this issue, which then lends more weight to the 
argument, as there was in the case of Valerie Plame and Jack Abramoff, 
for the need for a special counsel.
  Mr. DURBIN. I do not see the connection. If the Attorney General and 
the President said: We are not going to investigate this matter, 
Senator McCain, I would be standing right next to the Senator on the 
floor calling for a special counsel. But they have said just the 
opposite. They have initiated an investigation and brought in two 
career criminal prosecutors whom we have trusted to take public 
corruption cases in the District of Columbia and leaks of classified 
information in other cases. And he said: Now you have the authority. 
Conduct the investigation.
  They are not ignoring this.
  Mr. McCAIN. Those two counsels report to whom? The Attorney General 
of the United States.
  Mr. DURBIN. And ultimately report to the people.
  Mr. McCAIN. So I would think, just for purposes of credibility with 
the American people, that a special counsel would be called for by 
almost everyone.
  Look, I understand the position of the Senator from Illinois. We have 
our colleagues waiting. I appreciate the fact that he is willing to 
discuss this issue. I think we have pretty well exhausted it.
  Mr. DURBIN. May I turn to one other issue the Senator raised, if he 
has a moment?
  Mr. McCAIN. Sure.
  Mr. DURBIN. The pending bill, cyber security--this is a bill which I 
hope we both agree addresses an issue of great seriousness and gravity 
in terms of America's defense. I know the Senator from Arizona and some 
of his colleagues have produced an alternative. I support the 
bipartisan bill that Senators Lieberman and Collins have brought to the 
floor.
  The major group who opposes the passage of the cyber security bill is 
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an organization that represents the 
largest businesses in America, and what I have heard the Senator from 
Arizona say over and over is that they have to be an important part of 
this conversation and this discussion. I think Senator Lieberman and 
Senator Collins would say: We have engaged them. We have listened to 
them. We have made changes consistent with what they were looking for. 
But clearly they have not reached the point where they are satisfied.
  I learned yesterday, when Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island came to 
the floor, that, in fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce really turns out 
to be pretty expert on this issue of cyber security. And I call the 
attention of the Senator from Arizona, if he is not aware of it, to a 
Wall Street Journal article of December 21, 2011. This Wall Street 
Journal article is entitled ``China Hackers Hit U.S. Chamber,'' and it 
starts by saying:

       A group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses 
     of America's top business lobbying group and gained access to 
     everything stored on its systems, including information about 
     its three million members, according to several people 
     familiar with the matter. The complex operation involved at 
     least 300 Internet addresses. . . . Four chamber employees 
     who worked on Asian policy had six weeks of their emails 
     stolen.

  The article goes on to say that the Chamber of Commerce did not 
notice this breach that went on for 6 months. The Federal Bureau of 
Investigation brought it to their attention. And then they learned that 
the Chinese had not only hacked into the computer mainframe, they had 
somehow hacked into the computer-driven thermostats in their office, 
and at times in the office of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, their copy 
machines and fax machines were spitting out pages with Chinese 
characters on them. They were completely compromised by this cyber 
attack. Now they come to us as experts on how to avoid a cyber attack.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Wall Street Journal article be 
printed at this point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 21, 2011]

  China Hackers Hit U.S. Chamber--Attacks Breached Computer System of 
                 Business-Lobbying Group; Emails Stolen

                          (By Siobhan Gorman)

       A group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses 
     of America's top business-lobbying group and gained access to 
     everything stored on its systems, including information about 
     its three million members, according to several people 
     familiar with the matter.
       The break-in at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the 
     boldest known infiltrations in what has become a regular 
     confrontation between U.S. companies and Chinese hackers. The 
     complex operation, which involved at least 300 Internet 
     addresses, was discovered and quietly shut down in May 2010.
       It isn't clear how much of the compromised data was viewed 
     by the hackers. Chamber officials say internal investigators 
     found evidence that hackers had focused on four Chamber 
     employees who worked on Asia policy, and that six weeks of 
     their email had been stolen.
       It is possible the hackers had access to the network for 
     more than a year before the breach was uncovered, according 
     to two people familiar with the Chamber's internal 
     investigation.
       One of these people said the group behind the break-in is 
     one that U.S. officials suspect

[[Page 12974]]

     of having ties to the Chinese government. The Chamber learned 
     of the break-in when the Federal Bureau of Investigation told 
     the group that servers in China were stealing its 
     information, this person said. The FBI declined to comment on 
     the matter.
       A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Geng 
     Shuang, said cyberattacks are prohibited by Chinese law and 
     China itself is a victim of attacks. He said the allegation 
     that the attack against the Chamber originated in China 
     ``lacks proof and evidence and is irresponsible,'' adding 
     that the hacking issue shouldn't be ``politicized.''
       In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a 
     daily briefing that he hadn't heard about the matter, though 
     he repeated that Chinese law forbids hacker attacks. He added 
     that China wants to cooperate more with the international 
     community to prevent hacker attacks.
       The Chamber moved to shut down the hacking operation by 
     unplugging and destroying some computers and overhauling its 
     security system. The security revamp was timed for a 36-hour 
     period over one weekend when the hackers, who kept regular 
     working hours, were expected to be off duty.
       Damage from data theft is often difficult to assess.
       People familiar with the Chamber investigation said it has 
     been hard to determine what was taken before the incursion 
     was discovered, or whether cyberspies used information 
     gleaned from the Chamber to send booby-trapped emails to its 
     members to gain a foothold in their computers, too.
       Chamber officials said they scoured email known to be 
     purloined and determined that communications with fewer than 
     50 of its members were compromised. They notified those 
     members. People familiar with the investigation said the 
     emails revealed the names of companies and key people in 
     contact with the Chamber, as well as trade-policy documents, 
     meeting notes, trip reports and schedules.
       ``What was unusual about it was that this was clearly 
     somebody very sophisticated, who knew exactly who we are and 
     who targeted specific people and used sophisticated tools to 
     try to gather intelligence,'' said the Chamber's Chief 
     Operating Officer David Chavern.
       Nevertheless, Chamber officials said they haven't seen 
     evidence of harm to the organization or its members.
       The Chamber, which has 450 employees and represents the 
     interests of U.S. companies in Washington, might look like a 
     juicy target to hackers. Its members include most of the 
     nation's largest corporations, and the group has more than 
     100 affiliates around the globe.
       While members are unlikely to share any intellectual 
     property or trade secrets with the group, they sometimes 
     communicate with it about trade and policy.
       U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers have become 
     alarmed by the growing number of cyber break-ins with roots 
     in China. Last month, the U.S. counterintelligence chief 
     issued a blunt critique of China's theft of American 
     corporate intellectual property and economic data, calling 
     China ``the world's most active and persistent perpetrators 
     of economic espionage'' and warning that large-scale 
     industrial espionage threatens U.S. competitiveness and 
     national security.
       Two people familiar with the Chamber investigation said 
     certain technical aspects of the attack suggested it was 
     carried out by a known group operating out of China. It isn't 
     clear exactly how the hackers broke in to the Chamber's 
     systems. Evidence suggests they were in the network at least 
     from November 2009 to May 2010.
       Stan Harrell, chief information officer at the Chamber, 
     said federal law enforcement told the group: ``This is a 
     different level of intrusion'' than most hacking. ``This is 
     much more sophisticated.''
       Chamber President and Chief Executive Thomas J. Donahue 
     first learned of the breach in May 2010 after he returned 
     from a business trip to China. Chamber officials tapped their 
     contacts in government for recommendations for private 
     computer investigators, then hired a team to diagnose the 
     breach and overhaul the Chamber's defenses.
       They first watched the hackers in action to assess the 
     operation. The intruders, in what appeared to be an effort to 
     ensure continued access to the Chamber's systems, had built 
     at least a half-dozen so-called back doors that allowed them 
     to come and go as they pleased, one person familiar with the 
     investigation said. They also built in mechanisms that would 
     quietly communicate with computers in China every week or 
     two, this person said.
       The intruders used tools that allowed them to search for 
     key words across a range of documents on the Chamber's 
     network, including searches for financial and budget 
     information, according to the person familiar with the 
     investigation. The investigation didn't determine whether the 
     hackers had taken the documents turned up in the searches.
       When sophisticated cyberspies have access to a network for 
     many months, they often take measures to cover their tracks 
     and to conceal what they have stolen.
       To beef up security, the Chamber installed more 
     sophisticated detection equipment and barred employees from 
     taking the portable devices they use every day to certain 
     countries, including China, where the risk of infiltration is 
     considered high. Instead, Chamber employees are issued 
     different equipment before their trips--equipment that is 
     checked thoroughly upon their return.
       Chamber officials say they haven't been able to keep 
     intruders completely out of their system, but now can detect 
     and isolate attacks quickly.
       The Chamber continues to see suspicious activity, they say. 
     A thermostat at a town house the Chamber owns on Capitol Hill 
     at one point was communicating with an Internet address in 
     China, they say, and, in March, a printer used by Chamber 
     executives spontaneously started printing pages with Chinese 
     characters.
       ``It's nearly impossible to keep people out. The best thing 
     you can do is have something that tells you when they get 
     in,'' said Mr. Chavern, the chief operating officer. ``It's 
     the new normal. I expect this to continue for the foreseeable 
     future. I expect to be surprised again.''

  Mr. McCAIN. First of all, could I say that is just unfair. They are 
not claiming to be experts on cyber attacks. They are claiming that 
there are issues of liability, issues of information sharing, and other 
issues that they believe will inhibit their ability to engage in 
business practices and grow and prosper. So to say that somehow they 
claim they are experts on cyber security, they are not, but they are 
experts on how their businesses can best cooperate, share information, 
resist these attacks, and come together with other people and other 
interests to bring about some legislation on which we can all agree.
  There are 3 million businesses and organizations that are represented 
here, I say to my colleague, so it seems to me that we should continue 
this conversation with them, particularly on issues of information 
sharing and liability. But to somehow say ``well, we talked to them, 
but we did not agree with anything they wanted to do'' is not fair to 
those 3 million businesses. We are making some progress. But please 
don't say they portray themselves as experts.
  By the way, they hacked into my Presidential campaign, which shows 
they really were pretty bored and did not have a hell of a lot to do. 
But, anyway, go ahead.
  Mr. DURBIN. I am sure that wasn't the case. I am sure it was a 
fascinating treasure trove of great insights and information.
  But let me just say to my friend from Arizona, I am asking only for a 
little humility on both sides, both in the public sector and the 
private sector, by first acknowledging, as our security advisers tell 
us, that this is one of the most serious threats to our country and its 
future, and we should be joining with some humility, particularly if 
you have been victimized, whether in your campaign or in your offices, 
to understand how far this has gone. The FBI, according to Senator 
Whitehouse when he came to the floor, found 50 different American 
businesses that had been compromised and hacked into by the same type 
of operation. Forty-eight were totally unaware of it. They did not even 
know it occurred. What we are trying to do is to get these businesses 
to cooperate with us so that we share information and keep one another 
safe.
  At the end of the day, it is not just about the safety of the 
businesses--and I think it is important that they be safe--but the 
safety of the American people. This is really a serious issue.
  Mr. McCAIN. Can I say to my colleague, first of all, to somehow infer 
that businesses in America are less interested in national security 
than they are in their own businesses is not, I think, a fair 
inference. But let me also say that what they want to do is be more 
efficient in the way they can do business.
  For example, information sharing--as you know, there is a serious 
problem with liability if they are not given some kind of protections 
in the information sharing they would do with each other and with the 
Federal Government. So we want to make sure they have that security so 
that they will more cooperatively engage in the kind of information we 
need. That is a vital issue. That is still something on which we have a 
disagreement.
  I have no doubt that the comments of the Senator from Illinois about 
how

[[Page 12975]]

important this issue is are true. Nobody argues about that. But we have 
to get it right rather than get it wrong. The Senator from Illinois and 
I have been here a long time, and sometimes we have found out that we 
have passed legislation that has had adverse consequences rather than 
the positive ones we contemplated. By the way, I would throw Dodd-Frank 
in there. No company is too big to fail now. I would throw in some of 
the other legislation we have passed recently, which has not achieved 
the goals we sought.
  That is why we need, in my view, more compromise and agreement. I 
believe we can reach it. I give great credit to both of our cosponsors 
of the bill, but please don't allege that this is ``bipartisan'' in any 
significant way. Most of the Republican Senators oppose the legislation 
in its present form. All Republican Senators understand the gravity of 
this situation and the necessity of acting.
  Mr. DURBIN. I say to my friend from Arizona, I hope we get this done 
this week. I know it is a big lift, and it is a lot to do. But I 
believe the threat is imminent, and I believe it is continuous. If we 
don't find a way through our political differences to make this country 
safer, shame on us.
  I believe Senator Collins is from the Senator's side of the aisle and 
is proud of that fact. So it is a bipartisan effort. She worked with--
--
  Mr. McCAIN. It depends upon your definition of ``bipartisan.''
  Mr. DURBIN. Well, it is clearly bipartisan with Senators Lieberman 
and Collins. I also say that to raise the question of Dodd-Frank and 
appropriate government oversight and regulation--I suggest that we 
reflect on three things: LIBOR, Peregrine Investments, and the Chase 
loss of $6 billion.
  To say that we should not have government oversight of our financial 
institutions that dragged us into this recession we are still trying to 
recover from--I see it differently. We vote differently when it comes 
to that. I think there is a continuing need for government oversight of 
these financial institutions.
  Mr. McCAIN. These institutions are not averse to government 
oversight. They are averse to legislation that harms their ability to 
share that information because if they face the threat of being taken 
into court for that, then obviously there is some reluctance. They also 
know how much has been lost because of the lack of cyber security to 
China and other countries. They are the ones who have been most 
directly affected. They are intelligent people, smart people, and they 
want this legislation to pass in a way that is the most effective way 
to enact legislation on this very serious issue.
  I look forward to continuing the conversation with my friend from 
Illinois. I think both of us learn a bit from our conversations, and I 
thank him for his continued willingness to discuss the issue.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank my friend, the Senator from Arizona. I hope other 
colleagues will engage in this kind of exchange. I don't know if we 
convinced one another, but we certainly leave with the same level of 
respect with which we started. I hope those who have followed the 
debate have heard a little more about both sides of the issue in the 
process.
  Mr. McCAIN. I yield the floor.

                          ____________________