Immelt Says U.S. Falling Behind

General Electric (NYSE: GE) CEO Jeffrey Immelt said that the lack of a national policy is hurting the economy, and causing the U.S. to fall behind, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"The rest of the world is moving 10 times faster than we are," said Immelt. "That is going to mean fewer jobs, less energy security and a lot of other things."

Immelt criticized the U.S. government and praised China for its practices in regards to energy policy. "This [the U.S.] is a great country," he said. "But, you know, we have to have an energy policy. This is just stupid what we have today."

He went on to say that if the U.S. is going to get serious about energy policy, it needs to initiate a smart-grid on a national scale, and not in just certain areas of the country. He said that the nation's energy policy is very antiquated, and severely lags the policies of countries like Australia, Canada and and China.