Sen McConnell says he hopes cybersecurity legislation comes up again next month

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he hopes cybersecurity legislation is brought up again in the Senate. He opposed a cloture motion on the Cybersecurity Act (S. 3414) on Nov 14 because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wouldn’t allow an open amendment process. Sen Reid had said he’d allow a “finite” number of Republican amendments.

After the motion failed, Sen Reid said the bill was “dead for this Congress.” Sen McConnell hopes there is an open amendment process on the Defense Authorization Act — the next piece of legislation the Senate will take up – and, after that, he’d like to bring cybersecurity up again for consideration.

“The Senate will hopefully move to a full and open debate of the National Defense Authorization Act,” Sen McConnell said on the Senate floor. “During the time that the bill is considered on the floor, and I do expect that bill to be subject to an open amendment process, my hope is that the Majority Leader will work with me to reach an agreement on allowing a debate on cybersecurity legislation with Republican amendments in order, especially since the ranking members of the Armed Services, Intelligence, Commerce, and Judiciary committees are all co-sponsors of a cybersecurity bill that needs to be considered as part of this debate. My expectation is that sometime in December after we have completed floor debate on the Defense Authorization bill, and then dispose of the Intelligence Authorization bill, we will then attempt to get an agreement on amendments to the cybersecurity bill.”