Hutchison: Obama should not override Congress with cybersecurity order

{mosads}Hutchison acknowledged that the president has legal authority to enact some protections without Congress, but she said she is concerned that he will overreach.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), one of the co-sponsors of Lieberman’s bill, praised the White House for working on an order, calling it a “big deal.”

“Some of us pushed really hard for this,” he said.

Although there is widespread agreement that Congress should act to better protect the country’s computer systems, Hutchison and other Republicans objected to mandatory standards in the Democrats’ bill. They worried that the new regulations would burden businesses and do little to improve security.

But Democrats argue the standards are necessary to ensure that critical systems, like those managing water treatment plants or gas pipelines, are safe from attack.

After Lieberman’s bill failed in the Senate, the White House began working on an executive order on the issue. A draft of the proposal would establish a voluntary program where companies operating critical infrastructure would elect to meet cybersecurity best practices and standards crafted, in part, by the government, according to people familiar with the document.