Obama Considers Executive Action After Defeat of Cybersecurity Bill

(Newsroom America) -- President Obama is considering whether to use his executive authority to impose new rules regarding cyber-security following the defeat of Senate legislation aimed at doing the same thing.

"In the wake of Congressional inaction and Republican stall tactics, unfortunately, we will continue to be hamstrung by outdated and inadequate statutory authorities that the legislation would have fixed," White House press secretary Jay Carney said, following defeat of the bill, in an email response to The Hill newspaper.

"Moving forward, the President is determined to do absolutely everything we can to better protect our nation against today’s cyber threats and we will do that," Carney said in response to the paper's question of whether Obama would issue an executive order circumventing Congress.

The administration has said stronger cyber-security measures are needed to protect the nation's computerized infrastructure. The White House proposed its own measure in 2011, sent officials to testify at 17 congressional hearings and presented more than 100 briefings on the issue.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the president has argued that a successful cyber attack on banks, a water treatment system or electrical grid would have dire consequences.

Republicans, however, led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have expressed concern that the bill, called the Cybersecurity Act, offered by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, would burden businesses unnecessarily with regulations that would be ineffective.

Collins expressed disappointment that her bill did not pass, but did not show much enthusiasm for the possibility of Obama bypassing Congress.

"I'm not for doing by executive order what should be done by legislation," she told the paper.

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