In terms of emotion and intractability, the battle over natural resources policy may be the closest thing in Utah to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That being the case, Ted Wilson may soon learn what it feels like to be George Mitchell.

Wilson has just agreed to join Gov. Gary Herbert's administration as head of the newly minted Governor's Balanced Resource Council. The governor says he's tired of the constant bickering that has paralyzed policy on public lands, wilderness, water and air quality. He wants Wilson to head the volunteer council, which is heavily weighted with pro-growth, anti-wilderness Republicans, in a search for "sound processes" that can make progress on issues that have been "stagnant" for too long, in the governor's words.

Wilson himself is a high-profile Democrat, a former vice president and board member of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and, until recently, head of the Utah Rivers Council. He is, in other words, a card-carrying environmentalist. He will advise the governor on environmental issues, and head the council, which includes one other member from the enviro camp, Pat Shea, former director of the Bureau of Land Management under President Clinton.

Some of the other members, however, are among of the state's most outspoken anti-wilderness policy hawks, including Rep. Mike Noel, the Kanab Republican who also is a leading climate-change skeptic, and San Juan County's Lynn Stevens, a former military officer who has led the

Others include Kathleen Clarke, BLM director under President George W. Bush; John Harja, Utah's public lands policy coordinator; Dianne Neilson, the governor's energy policy adviser and former head of the Department of Environmental Quality; Leonard Blackham, former legislator, turkey farmer and head of the Department of Agriculture and Food; Mike Styler, the former Millard County commissioner and head of the Department of Natural Resources; and Amanda Smith, current DEQ chief.

Finding true policy compromise somewhere near the median with this group may make the diplomatic Wilson feel like Mitchell, President Obama's special envoy in charge of searching for peace in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, we applaud the governor's effort to find a road map forward. We agree with him that resource development and stewardship of the natural world are not mutually exclusive, though we know we tilt far more toward environmentalism than he and his Republican colleagues do.

The test, of course, is where to draw the lines.