Following what amounted to a defeat yesterday of his comprehensive cyber security bill, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.) called on the opponents of the measure to say where they are willing to compromise.
Following the failed vote to move forward with the Cyber Security Act of 2012 in the Senate, Lieberman told reporters he and his co-sponsors have already compromised but now it’s their opponent’s turn.
Lieberman said that during the lead up to the Senate’s discussion of the bill this week that opponents had said they want to agree on a “finite list” of amendments relevant to the cyber security legislation but that in the end none of these “had what we call here bill language, actual language of amendments they would like to submit to change the bill.”
Going forward, Lieberman said that the sponsors of the Cyber Security Act are open to still considering amendments “and I hope and pray we can find a way to get back to common ground to protect America’s common ground, American’s common cyber ground.”
Lieberman’s comments followed a 52-46 vote in the morning in favor of invoking cloture to allow debate on the Cyber Security Act to proceed. However, cloture requires 60 votes.
Lieberman said that the failure to move forward is a “disappointment that I really cannot conceal” and said he is “angry” over the Senate’s failure “to come together to deal with a serious national security problem.”
The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) chimed in blaming Republicans for the setback.
“Senate Republican opposition to this vital national security bill, coupled with the deeply-flawed House information sharing bill that threatens personal privacy while doing nothing to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure, is a profound disappointment,” the White House press office said.
Reid noted that a parade of the nation’s top security officials has been sounding the need for comprehensive cyber security legislation but that Republicans blocked consideration through filibuster and irrelevant amendments. When debate opened earlier this week, Republicans wanted to introduce amendments to the bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. Some Democrats, however, also wanted to introduce gun control amendments.
In opposing cloture, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the key opponents to the Cyber Security Act and a co-sponsor of alternative legislation, said yesterday the that the bill doesn’t deserve to move forward because it wasn’t subject to routine legislative processes, particularly mark-up in committee.
“Had this bill been subjected to the proper committee process…I believe we would have had a much stronger legislative product that would have attracted broader support.”
The Senate will be in recess until Sept. 10, and will have a relatively brief work period before the close of 2012 election campaign season. Sensing that the Cyber Security Act wouldn’t move forward this week, senators didn’t foreclose the option of the bill being discussed again shortly following the August recess.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), who guided the House’s passage this spring of piecemeal legislation on cyber security, said that given the Senate’s failure to approve a more comprehensive bill it should now take up the House measures.
Thornberry said the House bills “are an important first step, and each of them passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan votes.” He said there may be room for some compromise between the two chambers by borrowing “some of the Senate privacy provisions to strengthen the House bills even further.”
Several Senate Republicans voted for cloture while several Democrats opposed it. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) explained his opposition to the Cyber Security Act in its current form by saying its privacy provisions are still lacking.
Last month, the authors of the Cyber Security Act, which was first introduced in February, revised their bill to strip language opposed by most Republicans that mandates the government create standards for privately-owned critical infrastructure to follow in the area of cyber security.