Former Gov. George Pataki delivered perhaps the most powerful assessment of the move to rebuild the national electricity grid yesterday when he called for a greater federal role in the permitting process. This was the same Pataki who had championed deregulation in New York state -- and later defended deregulation after the huge 2003 blackout of the Northeast.Permitting, or "siting," has been identified by many as one of the largest of many obstacles in rebuilding and extending the national electricity grid to accommodate renewable energy sources wherever they can be tapped.

Pataki, speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit, notes:

More to the point, states need to see the benefit of connecting to this national electricity highway, much as they did in the days of federal highway building projects. "Let me tell you after 12 years as governor, you try to run a wire through someone's backyard and that becomes" a huge obstacle.

When it came to federal highway building, states wanted on- and off-ramps. They saw the benefits to commerce and transportation. It won't be as easy when it comes to renewable electricity, however. For that, states need to see what benefits await them, says Pataki.

The Center for American Progress, which was largely responsible for yesterday's gathering, states in a just-released position paper, Wired for Progress: Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid:

Siting is just one obstacle. Another huge one is a lack of national standards for high-speed electrical switching equipment, says Energy Secretary and Nobel laureate Steven Chu. Such a standard is necessary to flow power and trade information across regions. "The American industry does not have a standard," says Chu. "We need to move with a sense of urgency."

Without it, we have gridlock. Says Pataki, "If it's left to a state-by-state basis, for all the money, for all the technology, [the smart grid] is not going to happen."