“The Rockefeller-Snowe initiative will carve a course for our country to embrace a 21st century national security policy that will protect and preserve American cyberspace,” said Snowe. “Uniquely designed to establish a fully integrated public-private partnership to coordinate cyber security efforts, this legislation will ensure we have many of the tools to target, isolate and effectively combat cyber-attacks in America.”

Many of the legislation proposals were based on recommendations of a landmark study last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

• Create a National Cybersecurity Adviser in the Executive Office of the President
• Establish a National Cybersecurity Advisory Panel
• Adds regulatory requirements to ensure industry compliance
• Authority to shutdown computer networks in the event of a cyberattack
• Require NIST to establish “measurable and audit-able cybersecurity standards”
• Establish a 4-year cybersecurity review cycle of US cyber defense capabilities
• Implement comprehensive, real-time cybersecurity and vulnerability status of Federal IS
• Require the implementation of DNSSEC within 3 years
• Education standards for secure coding practices
• Establish Federal secure products and services acquisition board

The Rockefeller-Snowe effort having only been recently introduced, will likely pickup the recommendations from the 60-day Cyber Security study currently underway.  Given the focus of the study, the findings will likely build upon this effort and supersede this initiative.

Edit: Working draft of the bill can be found here:  Draft Cybersecurity Act 2009