Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I rise to talk about a bill that was introduced this morning. The bill is the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity…”

“I rise to talk about a bill that was introduced this morning. The bill is the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information, and Technology Act, which we refer to as the SECURE IT Act. This is a very important piece of legislation because we know that cyber attacks are a threat to our country and we need to strengthen our laws to ensure we are protecting our assets, our communication systems, and all of the infrastructure that is run by communications systems. We are working as a group. Senators McCain, Chambliss, Grassley, Murkowski, Coats, Burr, and Johnson are original cosponsors. All of us are the ranking members on the relevant committees that must deal with cybersecurity. Senator McCain, the lead sponsor, is, of course, the Armed Services ranking member. I am the ranking member of Commerce, Senator Chambliss of Intelligence, Senator Grassley certainly of Judiciary, and Senator Murkowski of Energy. It is very important that our relevant committees have come together with our ranking members, and we hope very much to gain support from the Democratic side as well on a bill that we think can get through all of Congress and be signed by the President because the parts of our bill that will strengthen our cybersecurity in this country are, I think, accepted by those who have expertise in this area.…”