Lynn Scarlett is Assistant Secretary of Policy, Management, and Budget at the Department of the Interior. Prior to joining the Bush Administration in July 2001, she was President of the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a nonprofit current affairs research and communications organization. For 15 years, she directed Reason Public Policy Institute, the policy research division of the Foundation. Her research focused primarily on environmental, land use, and natural resources issues.

Ms. Scarlett is author of numerous publications on incentive-based environmental policies, including, most recently, a chapter in Earth Report 2000 (McGraw-Hill) on "dematerialization." She co-authored a report, Race to the Top: State Environmental Innovations, which examines state environmental programs that utilize incentives, private partnerships, and local leadership in addressing environmental problems.

Ms. Scarlett served on Pres. George W. Bush's environmental policy task force during his presidential campaign. She was appointed by former Gov. Pete Wilson to chair California's Inspection and Maintenance Review Committee, a position she held for 6 years. Ms. Scarlett served as an Expert Panelist on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's full-cost accounting and "pay-as-you-throw" projects. She chaired the "How Clean Is Clean" Working Group of the National Environmental Policy Institute from 1993-98 and served at the request of former EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus on the Enterprise for the Environment Task Force, which examined new directions for U.S. environmental policy.

Ms. Scarlett received her B.A. and M.A. in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also completed her Ph.D. coursework and exams in political science and political economy.