Neighborhood resistance is biggest hurdle facing Bush energy policy.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

WASHINGTON _ The Bush administration's new energy policy, which calls for 1,900 new electric power plants, 38,000 miles of new natural gas pipelines and lots more electric power lines, faces one major obstacle: We the people.

Americans want more power, now. But they don't want more power lines, power plants or gas pipelines anywhere near them.

Power companies and policy makers call a person who resists a "NIMBY," as in "Not In My Back Yard." A hard-line NIMBY is a BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) or simply a NOPE (Not On Planet Earth.)

Whatever the name, experts say community resistance has done more than environmental rules or oil cartels to generate America's current power crunch. They predict that nimbyism will be a major impediment to Bush's energy plan.

"Everyone wants their lights to go on . . . but no one wants their facility nearby," said former Ambassador Richard Sklar, just appointed head of California Gov. Gray Davis' energy task force. "It's rampant in this country and it's spreading across the world."

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Sklar, who as a United Nations diplomat helped negotiate among warring factions in the Balkans, said he is finding some of the same "irrationality and emotion" in local resistance to a new natural gas utility plant in San Jose, Calif.