Steve Thompson is an intelligent businessman who has good ideas about such local and state issues as education funding, land use, transportation and housing density. We believe his qualifications would make him a fine state legislator, but they aren't broad enough to make him effective in Congress.

Bishop, on the other hand, sits on U.S. House committees that are important to Utah - military, space and science. He is in a position to help Utah hold onto Hill Air Force Base, the largest employer in the state, during an upcoming round of possible military-base closures.

For those reasons, we believe Bishop should be returned to Congress, where, in a second term, he would have a chance to capitalize on his experience and his key committee assignments. However, our endorsement is not without reservations concerning his past connection as a lobbyist for Envirocare of Utah and some out-of-bounds bullying of a federal employee.

Last year Bishop very quietly proposed a law change that would have allowed Envirocare to dispose of more highly radioactive material than it was licensed to accept. When this ploy came to light, triggering two months of vehement public opposition, Bishop stubbornly contended the waste was no more dangerous than material Envirocare already disposed of. Eventually, Envirocare withdrew its proposal.

More recently, Bishop backed the town of Perry, in his home county of Box Elder, in its battle with the Army Corps of Engineers over an indefensible plan to replace a portion of seasonal wetlands near the Great Salt Lake with a sewage lagoon. Bishop's boorish criticism of the Corps' senior regulator in the Intermountain region forced his transfer.

That said, Bishop, a former high school teacher, has rightly championed the military mission in Utah. When funding was cut for runway construction at Dugway's Michael Army Air Field, $1 million was needed to lengthen the strip so it could serve as the emergency backup for the F-16s that fly out of Hill. Bishop persuaded the Utah Legislature to come up with the money and worked around legal obstacles to get the strip completed.

He sponsored a bill establishing a wilderness area that would protect the Air Force's Utah Test and Training Range and block disposal of high-level nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. Though it was defeated, Bishop was able to bring environmentalists on board, something his predecessor, Jim Hansen, couldn't do.

Bishop's record as a congressman is mixed, but we believe he deserves another term, especially when his opponent's public service potential is so clearly suited to local rather than Washington politics.