Lynn Scarlett

Interior
Lynn Scarlett
Assistant Secretary for Policy,
Management and Budget,
Chief Financial Officer,
Chief Acquisition Officer

If the Bush administration has its way, Lynn Scarlett will no longer be assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, chief financial officer and chief acquisition officer at the Interior Department. She was nominated in March to become deputy secretary, the No. 2 spot. Prior to joining Interior in July 2001, she spent 15 years as president of the libertarian think tank the Reason Foundation and the Reason Public Policy Institute, based in Los Angeles.

Scarlett's nomination, however, has been blocked in the Senate over oil development off the Florida coast. Thomas Weimer, who has been serving as acting assistant secretary for water and science, was nominated this spring to take Scarlett's place. Weimer's nomination, too, was held up in the Senate, over mineral rights in Colorado. It's unclear what would happen should Weimer be confirmed before Scarlett vacates the position.

Whoever holds the position will have a tough job. The Interior Department lags in financial management and linking budget decisions to performance measures. "We operate costly, duplicative financial and business management systems that include over 107 real property databases, 16 financial systems and 27 acquisition systems," the department stated in a second-quarter report of its progress on the President's Management Agenda. Consoli-dating those systems and eliminating the department's material weaknesses won't be easy.