CQ's Niels Lesniewski reports Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Tuesday that he plans to bring a comprehensive cybersecurity measure (S 2105) to the Senate floor next month. The Nevada Democrat indicated that he did not expect to resolve remaining differences without a floor debate. Chamber Republicans have been staunchly against provisions in the bill that would impose regulations on critical infrastructure providers and place the Department of Homeland Security in charge of overseeing cybersecurity. They have offered an alternate bill (S 2151) that has failed thus far to gain much traction.

"I think the only way we're going to iron out the differences on cybersecurity is bring it to the floor," Reid told reporters. He would not speculate on exactly when the bill would reach the floor in the work period after the Fourth of July recess, but did say "I'll bring it up in July sometime."

The news means cybersecurity stakeholders have only a few weeks to weigh in before the Senate takes up a bill that could impose sweeping new regulations on broad swathes of the economy. Industry lobbyists have been hard at work already, pushing for holes in the bill's security requirements, much to the disgust of cybersecurity experts. The end result will likely impose few requirements on private firms beyond what they already have in place, but even the appearance of regulations will draw GOP opposition. Still, the Senate is wary of being left behind on cybersecurity by the House and is likely to pass something, regardless of whether it has a chance of becoming law. A bipartisan group of Senators has been working on a compromise that could involve industry incentives for companies to adopt security baselines. Such incentives would likely go down much easier in today's decidedly anti-regulatory political climate.