By SIOBHAN GORMAN
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce fired back Thursday at charges from a top lawmaker that it is "intransigently opposed" to legislative attempts to create a voluntary system of cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure companies.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) launched an inquiry Wednesday into corporate practices. He is surveying the chief executives of Fortune 500 companies to ask for details of their efforts to protect their networks.
In the letter, he said he would be "surprised to learn that many other American companies…are as intransigently opposed to our cybersecurity legislative effort as the Chamber of Commerce has indicated they are."
The Chamber's National Security and Emergency Preparedness Director, Matthew Eggers, said Mr. Rockefeller's characterization of the group's position on the bill was "off-base." He said there is a consensus that there is a need for legislation to "facilitate cybersecurity across different sectors." The disagreement is over how to do it, he said.
He said Congress should first pass pending bills that would establish systems to share cyber attack and threat information between the government and private industry.
The Chamber has been public in its opposition to Mr. Rockefeller's bill, which the White House supported. Chamber officials said it would create a "government-managed process" for establishing cybersecurity standards. Even voluntary guidelines, it said, would "impose new obligations on participating companies."
The Chamber warned lawmakers in July, before the Senate began debating the bill, that votes taken on the bill could be noted in the organization's annual assessment of members of Congress. Shortly afterward, a vote failed on whether the Senate should take up the bill for final approval. Supporters of the bill said the bill failed largely due to Chamber opposition.
Mr. Eggers said that following that failed vote, the Chamber "sought to reengage the Senate" and provided recommendations "for ways to find common ground."