Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now, on something that is very important to this country, Senator Peters, in a minute, will move to pass the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act.

As we all know, protecting America--our government, our businesses, our utilities, and so many of our entities--from cyber attack has been very, very important over the last decade. It becomes even more important now. As the war in Ukraine goes on and as Putin mounts his illegal, immoral, and unprovoked attack, he is escalating cyber attacks on democracies around the world. So, as the need to protect this country from cyber attack is always very, very, very important, it has assumed even greater importance now with Putin's fighting in Ukraine and threatening cyber attacks throughout the world.

Today, the Senate is taking an urgently needed step to protect the American people, American critical infrastructure, and American Government institutions from the dangerous threat of cyber attacks. The most important part of this provision will require our companies--our individual businesses--to report cyber attacks when they occur.

There has been a reluctance on the part of many in the business community to want to do this because it may expose them to other kinds of harm, and maybe the public will not want to be involved in these businesses, but the importance of the reporting is vital. When our authorities in the government know of the attacks, they can prepare against future attacks. They will know who is attacking, where they are attacking, and how they are attacking. That will allow them to strengthen our defenses against future cyber attacks. So this knowledge of cyber attacks, caused by foreign entities or domestic entities, is vital as America seeks to protect itself.

This legislation has been around for a while. For too long, certain business interests opposed it, but now they have come to see the light, and, in fact, we have a bipartisan agreement--unanimous in this Chamber--that this bill move forward. That is very important for America's security. It is more important than it ever has been. Cyber warfare is truly one of the dark arts--specialized by Putin and his authoritarian regime--and this bill will help to protect us from Putin's attempted cyber attacks against our country.

Last year, I asked Chairman Peters and other relevant committee chairs to draft legislation to counter the increased threat, and Senator Peters has done an outstanding job. I want to commend him and Senator Portman and so many others--Senator Warner among them--for being heavily involved in this issue.

Tonight, we will pass legislation by unanimous consent. When this legislation passes and is signed into law, America will be a safer place from one of the greatest scourges we worry about--cyber attack. I am glad we are doing this, and I am glad both sides have agreed.

I yield to Senator Peters, who, as I said, as chair of the HSGAC Committee, has done a terrific job in shepherding this legislation through the Senate.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, just one more point.

As we have always said, we in the Democratic majority want to work with our Republican colleagues on bipartisan legislation whenever we can, and this is an example of that.

Obviously, there are times when we can't, and we will move forward. But the more we can get done and accomplished in a bipartisan way on important legislation like this, the better.

So, once again, let me salute the bipartisan coalition led by Gary Peters and Rob Portman and so many others on both sides of the aisle who contributed to this very important legislation.

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