(Bloomberg) -- A decade ago, after hackers were caught infiltrating natural gas pipeline operations and an al-Qaeda video emerged calling for an “electronic jihad” on U.S. infrastructure, then-Senator Joseph Lieberman tried to sound the alarm.

The system is “blinking red,” Lieberman warned his Senate colleagues during debate on the threat in 2012. “Privately owned and operated cyber infrastructure can well be, and probably some day will be, the target of an enemy attack.”

Led by the Connecticut independent and one-time vice presidential candidate, lawmakers sought to require energy companies to strengthen computer security. But the effort withered under fierce lobbying by oil companies and other corporate interests that succeeded in killing the legislation. That left in place a system of voluntary guidelines that failed to stop last month’s ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline Co., which paralyzed a major artery for fuel along the East Coast.

“It’s really a lost opportunity,” said Lieberman, now senior counsel at Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP. “The attack on the Colonial Pipeline might not have happened if we passed the legislation.”

Now, in response to the attack, the Department of Homeland Security is preparing to jettison the voluntary approach and impose cybersecurity requirements on pipelines, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be identified before a formal announcement.

That would be a defeat for oil companies and pipeline operators that for more than a decade have successfully fought off federal standards to thwart cyberattacks from legislation or regulatory agencies. Unlike power plants, U.S. pipelines are not required to follow any federal cybersecurity mandates, even though Homeland Security was given the authority to impose them when it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

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