Political Quotes

“I thank Senator Blumenthal for that question, and I thank him for his work in this area. For some time he, Senator Graham, Senator Blunt, and I were part of a group that tried to pull together a bipartisan compromise, a meaningful piece of cyber security legislation, which, unfortunately, failed at the last minute. As a result of that failure, the President began a process by Executive order for bringing together the various private sector industries in this country whose operations qualify as critical infrastructure, and that provide the basics for your lives--the basic heat, electricity, financial services, and communications on which modern, civilized life depends. From all the reports I have heard--and I have looked at it very closely--that process is actually going very smoothly. As a result, the administration is comfortable with deferring legislative activity in that area--in the area of trying to regulate and improve the cyber security of our critical infrastructure. We are holding off for the time being on that, but the area of public awareness is still wide open. Legislative authorities are required--not just Executive order authorities--in many of these areas, particularly for organizations, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is largely independent of direct Presidential control, because they are independent agencies under our constitutional system. This bill would not interfere with what is going on under the authority of the Executive order.…”