March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Pop star Jessica Simpson once mistook Gale Norton for an interior decorator. Simpson isn't the only one confused over the role of a U.S. Interior secretary.

The Cabinet post is one of the most wide-ranging and least- understood jobs in Washington. Interior's far-flung duties include controlling a fifth of U.S. land and 68 percent of oil and gas reserves; coordinating budgets for a string of Pacific island territories; and running schools for some 50,000 American Indian children.

At one point, the department even owned Nevada's Mustang Ranch brothel, prompting Norton to observe: ``It gives the phrase `Madame Secretary' a whole new meaning.''

As Norton, 52, prepares to turn over the job to Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, the post is also increasingly beset by conflicts between environmentalists and developers. Divisions in the 70,000-employee department, once dubbed the ``Department of Everything Else,'' range from the commercial-opportunity-seeking Bureau of Land Management to the conservationist Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.

``Whoever is in that office is going to be a grave disappointment to a whole bunch of parties and interest groups, because the Department of Interior includes such a magnificently split mandate,'' said Patricia Limerick, co-founder of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

``I didn't want the job,'' said Walter Hickel, 86, a former Alaska governor who ran Interior under President Richard Nixon. Nixon telephoned and ``didn't ask me,'' Hickel said. ``He said, `Wally, I'm going on national television in 15 minutes and I'm going to announce that you're going to be my secretary of Interior.' He hung up. I cried.''

More Notice

Kempthorne, 54, got a bit more notice. He was in Washington on March 16 to meet with his state's congressional delegation and speak to military officials about National Guard issues. He got a summons from President George W. Bush, who offered the two-term Republican governor the job.

``I did not wake up this morning thinking I would be named,'' Kempthorne told reporters that day. ``I've not been back to the hotel to change my suit.''

He'll find that the job has its share of perks. Interior secretaries recount how Harold Ickes, who served a record 13 years mostly under President Franklin Roosevelt, scouted fellow Cabinet members' offices to make sure his was the biggest when the current Interior Department building was erected in 1936.

``I am eternally grateful to him,'' Norton, who occupied the 1,100-square-foot room for more than five years, told an audience at the Center of the American West in November 2004.

Patents and Jails

Congress created Interior in 1849 and charged it with duties ranging from issuing patents to running Washington's jail. Over the years, it ran much of what is now the Energy Department and even appointed the leaders of U.S. territories in the Pacific.

``People in other countries get a funny look on their face when you tell them you are with the Interior Department,'' said Anne Shields, 65, former chief of staff to Bruce Babbitt, who served as secretary under President Bill Clinton. ``They think that means we manage spies.''

Norton, who declined to be interviewed for this story, recounted her misunderstanding with singer Simpson in her 2004 appearance at the University of Colorado. When she introduced herself as the secretary of the Interior, Simpson ``said something like, `Well, you've done a nice job,''' Norton said. She realized the mix-up only later: ``My husband overheard the people who were standing next to her say, `No, not that kind.''' Simpson's publicist, Rob Shuter, confirmed the encounter and declined further comment.

Fall Guy

The department's biggest brush with fame may have been the Teapot Dome scandal. Secretary Albert Fall, a poker buddy of President Warren Harding's, secretly leased the Teapot Dome Reserve in Wyoming to an oilman and later received cash and livestock. In 1931, Fall became the only Cabinet officer to be convicted and imprisoned for a felony committed while he was in office.

Norton herself has been criticized for her efforts to give oil, mining and timber companies greater access to federal lands, and dogged by questions over her ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented Indian tribal clients before the department.

Presidents most often tap secretaries from Western states. Norton came from Colorado, as did James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's secretary, who spent most of his life in Wyoming. John F. Kennedy and Clinton picked conservationists from Arizona: Stewart Udall and Babbitt.

Running Nevada

There's a reason for that: the vastness of the department's holdings in the West. ``They run the entirety of Nevada,'' said David Javerbaum, a Comedy Central writer who's researching Interior for a musical he's writing about Watt. Javerbaum isn't far off: The department controls three-quarters of the state's land, according to Norton. It ended up with the Mustang Ranch, Nevada's first legal brothel, for a short time in 2003, after the Internal Revenue Service seized it for back taxes.

Watt, 68, who didn't return phone calls for comment on this story, drew fire from environmentalists for rolling back conservation efforts. He also earned the ire of rock fans -- not to mention First Lady Nancy Reagan -- when he refused to let the Beach Boys play on the National Mall because he said he expected the singers to draw undesirable visitors. That episode helped inspire Javerbaum's musical, tentatively titled ``Watt?!?''

``The whole thing is a rock musical, which is a form he would never sing in, in a million years,'' said Javerbaum, head writer on the ``The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.'' ``My purpose, in addition to being satirical, is also to make you like him.''

It's hard to be liked by everyone in such a pressure-filled job. Even as Kempthorne told Bush he accepted his offer to be a ``steward of the land,'' environmental groups were e-mailing reporters with negative reviews of his conservation credentials. Yet even they admit the secretary never has it easy.

``It's a very bruising job,'' said Bruce Hamilton, national conservation director for the Sierra Club in San Francisco. ``You are in the hot seat for some of the most contentious issues in American society.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington kjensen@Bloomberg.net Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 21, 2006 00:13 EST