Despite much-anticipated energy legislation slated to come out of Congress this week, Utah energy insiders say the main issues, obstacles and challenges facing the industry and consumers aren't going anywhere — at least not in the near term.

Leaders from Utah's utility industry, government and business gathered Wednesday at the Salt Lake Chamber's Energy Policy Forum, a two-hour event organized to highlight issues, dispel myths and chart the path forward.

While the event's 10 panelists — ranging from Salt Lake-based Questar chief executive Keith Rattie to Jim Kohler, senior analyst with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and Tracy Livingston, chief executive of Wasatch Wind, a wind power company based in Summit County — sometimes bore divergent points of view, they seemed to agree on a few points:

• Energy demand is putting pressure on supply, which in turn is putting continued upward pressure on prices.

• Barring a recession or some other dramatic event, demand is not likely to diminish any time soon.

• The status quo isn't indefinitely sustainable.

"I'm going to try to sort out the realities, of which there are a few, from the energy myths, of which there are many," Rattie said. "Everyone here knows that energy prices are at the highest levels they've been at in a couple of decades. High prices are sending us a very simple message, and that is that we have a supply problem. The hallmark of that problem is this country's inability to reconcile our need for ever-increasing amounts of energy with our environmental ideals.

"We Americans love our cars. We aspire to own the biggest houses we can afford. We like to keep those homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We like the freedom to move about the country. We like devices that use electricity. We want our food to be low cost, high quality, free from bugs and rodents, and that means that farmers have to use petrochemicals. We love plastic and synthetic fibers, and all these things depend on an abundant — and growing — supply of energy."

At the same time, he said, Americans generally express a dislike for "the things we have to do" to obtain the things we want. Americans generally voice displeasure about dependence on foreign oil, mining and drilling, building new refineries and the development of nuclear power technologies.

The consequence of that conflict is "what you see when you open your energy bill from your utility every month," Rattie said.

In the end, Rattie held that there are only a few "realities" in the energy debate.

First, the demand for energy will increase in the next several decades, he said.

The United States currently imports 63 percent of its crude oil, according to Lee Peacock, president of the Utah Petroleum Association. At current levels, the UPA predicts that the per barrel price for crude will remain above $50 through 2006.