like whether you like one that we passed last year, the proposal, whenever it is. the one thing we ought to deal to agree on is the status quo is completely unacceptable. from the president's "what he says he seems to get. his actions and his budgets have simply taken the approach that we are just going to cut and we're not going to do anything to change the forces within the programs. so there are good ways to save, and there are less preferable ways to save. this particular proposal or this particular law ..

you are opposing a false choice. you are stain the status quo of the tax cuts and whatever else you said, the point is this. there are a number of ways to reform the tax code and who have spoken more about reforming the tax code then we. i don't know if anyone has. i advocate for that every chance i get, so the idea that you somehow have to adopt their version of change or you are not for change is nonsense. medicare is a completely

different issue because of this. with medicare, there is only one reform plans. i passed out a reform plan. there is only one reform plan. the senate hasn't passed a reform plan and the last time i checked. the president hasn't proposed a reform plan for medicare. there is one reform plan that has passed through the house or the senate and that is our reform plan. now, talk about taxes all you want and i will be happy to stay and talk about that. i am all for fundamental reform of the tax code. i believe we can get more revenues by adopting a fairer, flatter approach. we talked about that and we voted for it last year, at least the framework. you will hear more about that in the year as it proceeds but there is no other option on the table with medicare. i would love to take different

medicare reforms. i haven't seen any. >> one of the most harsh criticisms heard about the health care law is often characterized as death penalty. is that still a fair -- and some who oppose the health care law and describe it in the terms of -- [inaudible] >> let me address that. we don't know what it's going to turn out to be, because the bill gave very broad authority to the independent payment advisory board to control those costs in any way they saw fit. so they could in fact fulfill the entire requirement. they could on the other hand just impose an across-the-board payment cut to all providers which really would result in the

rationing you heard about. in my rural area it's already hard to find a primary care provider who takes medicare and across-the-board the cuts would be devastating the part of the problem with independent payment advisory board is it is completely nonspecific as to how that is done with no congressional oversight to it. with regards to the question of cost, we know that we have budget neutrality rules and in fact this ipath repeal with the tort reform we actually return money to the treasury to actually help solve the deficit and it's completely consistent with republican principles. >> the rhyme budget is going to come out and apparently includes some health care reform that might resemble very ryan medicare reform and i just wanted to get your thoughts on that. >> well i think it's another example of the house bleeding by throwing reforms out there for discussion so that we can solve

this problem. nothing but crickets from the senate on this front. they are still struggling with the issue of a budget. we did something on this last year and as i said before, i am happy to debate all sorts of different reforms that save medicare but the status quo is unacceptable because the status quo as president obama said and senator lieberman and many others have pointed out, status -- status quo leads to bankruptcy so when you hear the demagoguery about proposed reforms compared to the status quo that is intellectually dishonest because the status quo is not a possibility. [inaudible conversations]

>> we have even had advice that we do not do is i did today and come in with a plain old white shirt and a summer tide, heaven forbid. now i don't know whether my colleagues feel that this would be a better decorum for the senate and i see the distinguished senator stafford over here nodding no and perhaps

the people of ohio would be glad to make a judgment on what they want to see me at tired in here in the united states senate. so mr. president these are just a few of our concerns here in the senate that i am sure that none of us will do anything differently in the senate of the united states now that we are on television. >> c-span, created by america's cable company as a public service. >> this week on "the communicators" west virginia senators jay rockefeller chaired the commerce science and transportation subcommittee. he talks about cybersecurity legislation before the senate and the nature of cyber threats. >> host: senator jay rockefeller, chairman of the commerce committee, you recently said that cybersecurity legislation is absolutely necessary now, that citizens are at risk.

why do you say that? >> guest: because it's true. george bush's last direct -- director of national intelligence which is the highest national direct your position said the same thing and they continue to say it that it's the number one threat to the national security in existence. bob mueller mueller says you know within a year he will be taking cybersecurity as a much more urgent problem in this country then loose nukes, soviet nuclear weapons. >> host: do you view cybersecurity or cyber attacks as terrorism? >> guest: i do. i view it as war, and i would like to discipline myself in that thinking because it really is. if you are hacking into the pentagon three, 45 million times a day and every senator and his office is corporate america, something has to wake us up and we are not awakens to it.

you know we started the cybersecurity bill and i'm impatient about it. we started this thing really the day before obama was inaugurated. when he was elected, we got to olympia snowe and i got to work and we put out a bill that joe lieberman and susan collins came in and it's just progressed and progressed in progress so it's virtually passable. we have to get some republicans on board but i think we can do that. >> host: senator rockefeller how similar is the current cybersecurity legislation being pushed by you and senators lieberman and collins to the bill but you brought to the floor, brought to the committee three years ago? >> guest: very similar, very similar and are bill is accepted by the leader, it was accepted by the white house. we did it with melissa hathaway and -- we have had thousands of

meetings, either directly or through telecommunications with all kinds of people. we have made adjustments. we just meet with so many people and we have made so many tweaks and just to get it so that it would pass. you know it has got to have critical infrastructure, which is what the republican bill doesn't have now but i think that will change. we have got to have, we have got to protect our federal you know situation, the so-called.gov. we have got to do that and then we have got to have a lot of research and development and we have to develop a lot more talent for people who are up to speed on cybersecurity, to keep up with other countries and other actors, and it's critically important. i compare it to 9/11. except it's much more obvious than 9/11. 9/11, you suspected that there were people coming in and out of

the country and he couldn't keep up with their movements but you would have a bad feeling about it. if something would go on in minneapolis, the fbi station did and it wouldn't get to headquarters and then there were you know dots to be connected, people living in houses in san diego and it was all very clear that something big was going to be happen but we didn't know. here, we know because it is happening. warfare, cybersecurity is being waged and we are losing. and it's you know, 3000 people died in 9/11. if they unleashed dams or water since -- poisoned water systems were shut down hospitals, just shut down air traffic control on one of those days when airplanes

are just running into each other up in the sky. that could kill so many people so easily and the miracle to me is they haven't done it so far and it's not to our credit. just the fact that it just hasn't happened. but it will. >> host: are you finding that these attacks are organized by nation-states or rogue agents? >> guest: nation-states would be the first priority obviously, but a 15-year-old kid living in indonesia or living in spokane washington or oregon, wherever, could be doing this. it just takes brains, a facility and a malicious intent. >> host: what are you hearing from the so-called critical infrastructure emphasis, the electric companies etc. about the regulation? senator mccain as you know called saying regulatory leviathan. >> guest: i just have a hard time with that because

electricity more or less runs every hospital, every business, every school, every home, every enterprise in this country and therefore it's the security of the nation. if they can shut down grids, which they have done in selected places across the united states already, if they can shut that down on a broader scale, then critical infrastructure becomes just exactly that. you absolutely have to protect that number one priority, protecting critical infrastructure because that is where people's lives are at risk. that is where you really lose thousands, potential thousands, hundreds of thousands. think if they got into the computer system of a day am and all the water was released and all the people below that dam. they can do these things. >> host: do you think there's a need for a white house level cybersecurity czar? >> guest: no and that was one of the first things we did. we had in our original bill.

i'm a little bit embarrassed about it because i don't like czars myself but it was kind of the language of the day and i don't know who it was a criticized that so we just took it out. the history of the development of the build has been a history of accommodation to industry, two other committees, two other people. you to week. you can say with your principles because it's not all that complicated when your goals are clear. cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, protect the government, protect the overwhelming 85% of entities which are private, information sharing, public art worship with the private sector, all of which is good. it's not regulation. it's called protection, it's keeping us safe, keeping us alive. >> host: when you hear

republicans criticize that this has been fast-tracked in the legislative process has been subverted, do you disagree with it? >> guest: i would say we are on the very slow track. i would like to have completed this a year and a half ago. as it is it's going to be hard to get to the floor this year but i take republican criticism constructively and the individuals in it, all of whom i respect greatly, all of whom know what they are talking about. my -- i propose to each one of them and so have others. i was on the intelligence committee when we started this and i'm still on the intelligence committee so i know a lot of these folks very well and they are our allies. they just may not know it yet or else we have not done a good enough job at making ourselves clear. also it's sort of hung around. the legislation hangs around for a long time and it begins to lose momentum. i fear that.

>> host: harry reid the majority leader said he wants to fast-tracked is. how did you get his attention on this issue? >> guest: simply by coming out with a pill. olympia snowe and i came out with the bill and we did it in very short order. in fact we were writing the bill i think obama, had been the president more than three or four months and of course we began talking with industry and all kinds of other groups and committees and all that and we followed it from there. it's not the same as it was in the beginning and the details but it's braced -- basic and suppose. with the one exception and that is that we have to get people who do not believe critical infrastructure which is the great mass of american functionality that has to be in the bill. that is not necessarily a debatable matter. you can't have cybersecurity without a critical infrastructure.

>> host: why he is the department of homeland security the right agency to monitor this? >> guest: well, the least reason i would like to say is the only one that really can. in other words the nsa couldn't do it. on the other hand, homeland security can cooperate, as they are, and even be a partner with nsa. i don't see janet napolitano and -- at the same place in the same conversation. we had a meeting earlier this week and they were both on the same page, both cooperating with each other but somebody has got to take the lead and janet napolitano whom i really trusted homeland security, which a lot of people look ' train and say they didn't do that right but they don't realize they have the spur of the intelligence units which has now been beefed-up, so it's the right place to do it and in fact the only place that you can do it. >> host: some groups such as

the aclu and the electronic privacy information center reveries privacy concerns for individuals with this legislation. >> guest: that would be automatic wouldn't it? when i was chairman of the intelligence committee we did fisa, which is allowing all of those in this case to telecommunications companies to be able to go ahead and collect intelligence that their servers all around the world or from which we got about 80% of our worldwide intelligence, but there have been 40 or $50 billion so the question is are we going to let them go ahead and do that or are we going to say no, you can't do that and protect privacy in absolute terms and put ourselves at risk? it was an easy decision for me. >> host: senator rockefeller a few more questions. the chief of security for at&t

testified at the house recently and he said that congress, and he was worried about the isps, the comcast and they isps of the world being lumped in with critical infrastructure in the said congress and the administration have leadership roles to play to ensure the u.s. continues to focus on technology innovation, burdening the private sector with the cost of unnecessary and ineffective regulations and processes is contrary to that objective. >> guest: if we were burdening the private sector with unnecessary and burdensome regulations and duplications i would agree with him, but were not. we are saying to the private sector, you do this. you do what you think, use your own imagination. if you can't, you don't know what to do, we will come and help. but in essence we leave it after the private sector to do it but then we hold them accountable for what they have done.

so, is that regulation or is that being sure in some sort of a business task or something. we are talking about national life and death situations. and so companies who know what they are doing and are already doing it, go right ahead. fine with us. but if companies don't know how to do it or are missing the point, we are watching. we are monitoring. it's not regulating, it's monitoring. if they need help we are going to be there to help them and they will want us to be there to help them because they know how much they are at risk and what the results of that could be. >> host: senator rockefeller any funding issues with this legislation? >> guest: no. i mean i say that pretty casually, don't it? we have to think it through fairly carefully. there would be some but the one thing about this is that in the end, we just finished passing a

transportation bill, as you and i were talking, on this day and that costs money. we can do anything which costs money but bridges and roads and you know, different kinds of infrastructure also critical but in a different way, and it passed overwhelmingly 4-1, this morning with republicans and democrats voting together. the congress knows what is really at stake in this country, and when you get a mission like cybersecurity which is so threatening, which lee hamilton and tom kean and the 9/11 commission say you have just got to get it done it has got to be original. it has got to have critical infrastructure in it. they say that specifically. all kinds of you know, input from people. i just don't see the money is a

problem. >> host: heavy look at how other countries are managing their cybersecurity? >> guest: i haven't. i should have, but i haven't. i've just been so wrapped up in getting this done and you know, europe is very different in china is very different, and he is very different, purcell is very different. i'm not sure it would have been useful. i think it would be useful for me to do it but i want to get a bill which has been affected so many times by so many people, put in front of so many organizations, technological communities and the private sector community. i have given a lot of speeches to them and accepted their criticisms and made changes. the staff that i work with on intelligence and commerce have done the same thing and they have made changes. i mean, if you really want to get something done don't insist on having it done exact way as you want. don't compromise on the four or

five main principles articulate a critical infrastructure and information sharing which is not as easy as it sounds but public partnerships, that is what we do in america, all kinds of things. so, i feel pretty good about that. >> host: i want to go back to the legislative timeline where you talk with senators collins and lieberman last weekend they were pretty sure that this bill would move during this couple of weeks of congress and you seem to have expressed some doubt about that. >> guest: i don't want to and i wish they were right and i hope they are. you always want to take a positive view, but floor time is hard in the senate right now because of the political bickering back and forth, the holds on things and you can't talk about that or we are not going to take that up or to get 60 votes, all this kind of thing. so i'm being cautious and i'm

zero so, i want to be so certain that we really do get a tremendous buy-in from all partners including the republicans who appear not to agree with what we say, maybe i think they don't feel as strongly because it appears that they feel and i have had several of those conversations with several of those folks. so we go to them, what can we do to make this work and without compromising critical infrastructure? that is just a really big stuff that makes this country go. blowing up power plants and all this stuff. i think we will work our way through that. >> host: senator jay rockefeller has been a guest on "the communicators." he's the chairman of the senate commerce committee and we have been talking about cybersecurity.

>> the house armed services committee will hold a hearing on military operations in afghanistan.

federal communications commission chairman julius genachowski was on capitol hill monday to testify about his agency's budget. last month president obama sent his 2013 budget request to congress allocating just under $347 million for the fcc. the total includes funding for expanding broadband services nationwide. >> in each case these are examples of modernized programs whose collectively yielding hundreds of millions of dollars in annual savings already. in addition to our programmatic changes we also review the agency's rules and processes asking tough questions and make sure the agency is operating efficiently and effectively are going connection with this review we have eliminated more than 200 outdated rules and unnecessary data collections and identified two dozen more data collections. internal reforms like team maintenance and new financial system that saved the agency millions of dollars and we have

done everything i've listed them or with the lowest number of full-time employees at the fcc in 10 years. maximizing the ability of 21st century negations technology to deliver value to the mac and people and doing so in a smart and responsible way and the fcc's record in the past three years and planning for the years ahead in the requested budget. to implement our responsibilities honest medications at the budget request 2% increase over the previous year from $339 million to $347 million. this proposal allows, adjusted for inflation and the amount will be derived entirely from the collections. the budget includes a small few new initiatives primarily technology investments designed to save money and public safety investments at saving -- provides a five-member full-time employees that represents the represents the lowest numbers at these in 10 years. the number of, excuse me. let me just conclude, the wired

to wireless broadband sector is critically important to our economy and the global competitiveness as well as working with the committee on implementing the new incentive options law and the opportunities that communications technology for our economy and the american people. >> thank you chairman genachowski. i do want to compliment you all and finding the $6 million plus in cost savings and efficiencies that is something that we can talk a little bit about that i wish all agencies were doing what you all were on that front. commissioner mcdowell. >> thank you ranking member serrano and all the members are committed. is a terrific to be a today and it's my first appearance before your subcommittees of thank you grabbing me. i would like to focus today on three matters currently before the commission. number one implemented the new new spectrum incentives that the chairman outlined. member two adopting contribution reform and number three examining complicity of proposed rules governing the maintenance

of political advertising files by tv broadcasters and lastly i'd like to address possible regulation of internet governance by an arm of the united nations. for spectrum reform to make more parts of our airways available to american consumers. as a result of the spectrum while the fcc will create and conduct the most complicated spectrum auctions or auctions in history. meanwhile, the debate over whether how the fcc should shape the outcome of this process. history has proven that regulators tend to overengineer spectrum options backfire so i hope all of us can apply the lessons learned from the commission's past missteps in ram with al and this new love. r. option rule should be minimal and future-proof allowing for flexible uses of spectrum and technology and markets change in the years to come. furthermore i'm optimistic we can create a structure that offers opportunity fo s