National Cybersecurity Protection Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAUL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to, first, start out by thanking--this was
not one person. This was a huge team effort, both in a bipartisan way
and bicameral way. I want to thank Pat Meehan for his great leadership on this. I want to thank Yvette Clarke for her great work and Bennie Thompson for being willing to come together in a bipartisan way on our committee to get something good done for the American people.

I want to thank Senators Carper and Coburn for moving forward--not
something that we see much this Congress, something actually coming out
of the Senate back to the House to pass out of this Congress, something
we haven't seen much these days.

I also want to thank the staff. I want to thank Alex Manning, who is
the staff director, and Brett DeWitt for his great work, tireless
hours, and on the Democrat side of the House as well, holding over 300
meetings with the private sector, working day in and day out to get to
the point where we are today on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I consider this to be a historic moment on the House
floor, as we pass the most significant cybersecurity legislation ever
passed by the Congress. This issue 10 years ago, no one would
understand it. Today, people are finally starting to wake up to the
fact that the threats from a cyber attack are real.

As we look at threats from China, from Russia, from Iran, we look at
the theft of IP--a lot of people have been hurt personally with Home
Depot and Target--we look at the theft of intellectual property from
Russia and China, we look at the espionage on a daily basis, every
Federal agency being hacked into, including the Pentagon, to steal
things out of this Federal Government, to hurt our national security,
and then, finally, we look at the most malicious threat, and that is a
threat to shut things down.

We saw recently, Mr. Speaker, an attack from Iran that shut down
30,000 hard drives of Aramco, the largest energy producer in Saudi
Arabia, while simultaneously hitting our financial sector. They
continue to hit our financial sector every day. They are hitting them
as I speak right now. We look at power grids being brought down and
water and energy. This threat is real. This threat must be dealt with.

I am pleased on the very last day of this Congress that we are going
to pass legislation that is going to protect America and make it safer,
that is going to protect our critical infrastructures from this daily
attack by foreign enemies that we have, unfortunately, across the
globe.

How will that work? This bill will codify what is called the NCCIC.
The National Cybersecurity Protection Act will create and codify a
cyber command structure within DHS, the Department of Homeland
Security, that is a civilian interface to the private sector which has
been supported by both business groups like the Chamber and privacy
groups like the ACLU.

It is amazing how we can bring this coalition together, but that is
how strong this bill is: privacy and business coming together, doing
what is right.

This will create a safe harbor, Mr. Speaker, where the 16 critical
infrastructures, the 16 sectors, can come together. The Federal
Government can take our threat information, our malicious codes that
they use to attack us, and share that with the private sector. It also
allows the private sector to share the information that they have with
the Federal Government in a safe harbor that is protected both
businesswise and personally as well.

Eighty to 85 percent of this threat information lies in the private
sector. This coalition, if you will, this partnership of information
sharing will better protect our critical infrastructures, and most
importantly, to have the 16 sectors on the floor at the Department of
Homeland Security, at the cyber command, and at the NCCIC all on the
floor together sharing information, not just public and private, but
amongst the sectors themselves--which is not taking place today--will
go a long way to protecting American people and our critical
infrastructures.

We have great offensive capability in this country. Our military has
great cyber offensive capability to shut things down; in the wrong
hands, that makes us very vulnerable. Where our weakness, our
vulnerability lies is our ability to defend the Nation against these
cyber attacks, and they are getting worse and more malicious by
countries and state actors that don't really like us and want to do us
harm.

I am proud of the work that we have done. I am proud of the work we
have done in a bipartisan way, the work this committee has done, and I
am proud of what the Senate has finally achieved to bring this finally
to the point where we can pass this bill out of the United States
Congress and have it signed into law by the President of the United
States.

At the end of the day, it is what we got elected here to do, and that
is to do good things to govern and get good things done on behalf of
the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McCAUL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I too want to recognize all the Members involved, the Senate, and
staff. To my ranking member, Bennie Thompson, I guess, as Churchill
said:

Never, ever give up.

Here we are on the last day of this Congress getting this done. What
a gratifying experience it is. What a great moment it is not just for
this Congress but, more importantly, for the American people and what
it represents.

Seventy-three years ago this week, this Nation was attacked at Pearl
Harbor. There are a lot of people that make analogies to what would be
a cyber Pearl Harbor if we are caught unprepared. I believe this bill
will go a long way to defending the Nation from what would be called a
cyber Pearl Harbor event.

My father served as a B-17 bombardier in the European theater. He
flew over 32 missions, including the air campaign in advance of the D-
day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge. They dropped kinetic bombs.

In the cyber world that we live in, we have to worry about digital
bombs and how we can stop that from hurting the United States, from
impacting the United States, from bringing the United States to its
knees. I believe this is the first step of many, and I look forward to
working on more legislation next Congress, but this is the historic
first step that we have taken in this Congress to move forward on this
very important issue and get it done to protect the American people.

With that, let me again thank everyone for their efforts. This has
been a great day for America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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