“Unless some unexpected disaster occurred to cyber, it can’t
come up,” Levin said. “Until this vote today, there was still a good chance.”

{mosads}The Defense authorization bill passed the Armed Services
panel in May, at which time Levin and ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) perhaps
overly optimistically predicted it would get on the floor by June or July.

Levin said earlier this month he remained hopeful about the bill’s
chances of coming up before the August recess, while McCain took to the floor multiple
times to assail Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.) for pushing
political bills to the floor instead of the defense bill.

McCain also
complained this week when Reid indicated he would move forward with the
cybersecurity legislation.

Reid’s reluctance to bring the authorization bill to the
floor isn’t about partisanship, as the measure has passed for 50 years
straight. But it would eat up several days of floor time with a number of potentially
prickly amendments, and could spark a fight over the Budget Control Act Reid is
not interested in having.

Those same issues could stall the bill further in September
when Congress returns, although Levin said he will push for the bill to get
floor time then.

“He knows how strongly I feel about it,” Levin said of Reid.

The House passed its Defense authorization bill in May.