Or, she might have added, while there still are some national parks that haven't been consumed by loggers, drillers, miners and the ugly ruts left by off-road vehicles.

If that is an exaggeration of the threat looming over the 500 million acres of land overseen by the Interior Department, it is only because there are enough members of Congress, of both parties, and enough tireless conservationists, from all walks of life, who will continue to do the job that the Bush administration should be doing. And that is to put the preservation of our fragile wilderness lands, park properties and open spaces ahead of all other pressures and demands.

Whomever President Bush nominates to replace Norton is almost certain to be another Westerner - as interior secretaries traditionally have been. The nominee is also expected to be someone who sees public lands primarily as a source of temporary wealth rather than as a permanent trust - as anyone who serves this administration must be.

Still, the process of selecting and confirming a new interior secretary - who oversees the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, among other divisions - is an opportunity for the Senate and the people of the United States to have at least a little bit of a soul-searching conversation about what we want that vast department to do.

It's not that there cannot be trees felled, oil extracted, gold dug up or grass trampled on federally owned land. Such things have always been happening on public land, and they always will.

But, throughout Norton's five years at the helm of the Interior Department, the driving philosophy seemed to be that there was too little exploitation and too much preservation. That despite the fact that millions of acres of land have long been open to various kinds of development and recreation, and the fact that federal managers are issuing oil and gas leases faster than they can be drilled on.

As senators consider Norton's replacement, they should also extract from that person pledges of more long-term stewardship of public lands, and less of a fire-sale approach to our irreplaceable treasures.

We can dream.