[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16209-16210]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 CYBERSECURITY INFORMATION SHARING BILL

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today the Senate turns its attention to the 
cybersecurity bill. It is way overdue. The

[[Page 16210]]

bill, which is OK, is better than nothing--let's put it that way.
  The ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, 
and the chairman of that committee, Senator Burr, have worked hard on 
this legislation, which addresses a serious national security issue. In 
fact, it is so serious that we should have addressed this topic long 
ago. We tried to. As Senate Democrats, we tried so very hard. We had a 
comprehensive cybersecurity bill on the floor 3 years ago which was 
much deeper and better than this one--3 years ago--but our Republican 
colleagues blocked us from even debating the bill. We couldn't even 
debate the bill. Why? They, the Republicans, were told the chamber of 
commerce didn't like it. At about the same time, the chamber of 
commerce's whole operation was hacked by the Chinese. The people who 
worked down there expected things to come out in English, but they came 
out in Chinese. But they didn't like the bill anyway, so they told the 
Republicans to oppose it, and they marched over here and opposed it.
  Democrats, however, realize cybersecurity is a serious issue. We know 
how important cybersecurity is for the national security of our country 
and the financial security of our economy.
  Even though this bill is not our perfect bill, we are going to 
cooperate with our Republican colleagues. Several months ago we reached 
an agreement with Republicans to begin debating this legislation, and 
now we can process it in an efficient and bipartisan manner.
  Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

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