Lieberman pushes back against Chamber's opposition to cybersecurity bill

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Thursday pushed back against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's claims that his cybersecurity bill is being rushed through the Senate.

Responding to a letter sent by the Chamber to senators Wednesday night, Lieberman said the bill has "been a long time coming" and there have been numerous hearings and discussions on the cybersecurity threat facing the United States. He noted that the co-sponsors of his bill altered the original version to respond to business groups' claims that it was too regulatory, making it "non-mandatory but still significant."

"This bill has been aired and worked on and it's ready for action," Lieberman said on the Senate floor. "But more to the point, the Senate needs to act. That's why it's so important that we adopt the motion to proceed, because this threat is real and growing every day."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a critical procedural vote that will determine the fate of the cybersecurity bill for Friday, but it might get pushed up to Thursday. Lieberman urged for the Senate to vote on the measure Thursday.

Lieberman said he was disappointed by the Chamber's letter and encouraged the business lobby to come to the table to help come up with a compromise, just as members of the Senate are doing this week. The co-sponsors of Lieberman's bill and the Republican backers of Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) competing cybersecurity measure, the Secure It Act, have been meeting this week to try to hammer out an agreement to bridge their differences on cybersecurity.

"It doesn't embrace the same spirit that I see members of the Senate embracing," he said. "We can't afford to be inflexible. We can't be closed to compromise, because of the urgency of the threat to our country.

"You'll never get anything done unless there's some sort of compromise here," he continued. "If you go into every negotiation saying, 'I'll only accept 100 percent of what I want,' you're not going to get anything."

Bruce Josten, the vice president of government affairs at the Chamber, wrote in the letter that "more time is needed for the Senate to more fully assess this deeply flawed proposal."

IBM also came out against Lieberman's bill, arguing that it would saddle industry with additional regulations. TechAmerica, a technology trade group, raised similar concerns on Thursday, but stopped short of opposing the bill.