Many of Washington’s top power brokers gathered at the Newseum for four hours Monday, hoping to present a unified front on energy and climate. They made it look easy: Absolutely everybody agreed that building a more efficient and advanced electric grid will create jobs, enable renewable energy development, enhance national security security and help address global warming.

“I’m struck by the tone of this meeting, and the sense of purpose,” said former US Vice President Al Gore. His former boss, Bill Clinton, followed up with a similar sentiment and then added: “Finally, we’ve got a consensus to move.” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called the meeting “inspirational.”

So what’s holding things up? As Clinton went on to acknowledge, “details matter.” For all of the agreement about achieving a future powered by clean domestic energy, there are plenty of disputes about exactly what that means and how to get there.

People matter, too. While the list of attendees included much of the American left, including Congressional leaders and White House appointments, as well as representatives of business, labor and the environmental community, Republican lawmakers were nowhere to be found.

The meeting represents a confluence of interests, most notably between the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund and the oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, who is pushing a plan to develop wind and domestic natural gas resources in place of imported oil. Organizers say the purpose was to build support and showcase the growing coalition of interests.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Reid confirmed that senators would take up legislation creating a new federal requirement for renewable energy production in the coming weeks, before tackling global warming later in the year. Doing so simplifies things and gives Democrats time to garner more Republican support, he said. “We do not what global warming legislation to be a Democratic bill. We want it to be a bipartisan bill.”

Reid also announced his support for increasing federal government’s role in siting transmission lines (see coverage here and here), another divisive issue that frequently gets in the way of otherwise friendly discussions about bolstering the electric grid. Asked about likely opposition from state and local regulators, however, Reid appeared a little less concerned about unity: “Whatever we pass at the federal level trumps all of that.”