MISSOURI CHIP MILLS -- ALL TWO OF THEM -- CAN REST EASY WHILE POLITICS PUTS REPORT ON HOLD

To listen to some environmentalists, the forests of southern Missouri are in danger of being stripped bare in order to keep chip mills running. Now a secret report -- made public by the Columbia Daily Tribune -- has set back efforts of the governor's advisory committee to come up with recommendations about chip-mill operations.

As a result, it appears the task of dealing with chip mills will fall to whoever succeeds Gov. Mel Carnahan. This is another sticky issue that has been neatly avoided by Carnahan, who wants to be the next U.S. senator from Missouri.

Chip mills -- there are only two big ones in the state -- provide a market for a vast, renewable resource. Thanks to politics, they aren't likely to go away any time soon.