Patricia Lynn Scarlett is an American government official, environmental policy executive, and analyst. She served as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Interior from 2005 to 2009 and twice served as Acting United States Secretary of the Interior (April–May 2006 and January 2009).
Career
Scarlett was appointed by President George W. Bush as Assistant Secretary of Policy, Management and Budget at the Department of the Interior from 2001 to 2005, and was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of the Interior on November 22, 2005. She served as acting Secretary of the Interior between the administrations of Gale Norton and Dirk Kempthorne in 2006, and again for one day in January 2009 between the Bush and Obama administrations. While at the Department of the Interior, she chaired the federal Wildland Fire Leadership Council (2004–2005), co-chaired the First Lady's Preserve America Initiative on historic preservation (2003–2008), chaired the department's Climate Change Task Force, and convened the Cooperative Conservation Working Group. She also served on the President's Management Council.
Before joining the Bush administration, Scarlett was President of the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles, California, where she had previously worked as a policy analyst and senior manager.
From 2010 to 2013, she was Co-Director of the Center for the Management of Ecological Wealth at Resources for the Future (RFF). She later served as Global Chief External Affairs Officer at The Nature Conservancy until her retirement in December 2021. She has also been a Managing Director of Public Policy at The Nature Conservancy.
Scarlett has served on numerous boards and commissions, including the National Parks Conservation Association, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, the American Hiking Society, and RESOLVE. She is a trustee emeritus of the Udall Foundation and has chaired the Science Advisory Board for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 2025, she was appointed Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Wildlife Refuge Association.
Education and Recognition
Scarlett earned a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2009. In 2014, she received the Sustained Achievement Award from the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation and was appointed to the U.S. Blue Ribbon Panel on Sustaining America's Diverse Fish and Wildlife Resources. She is registered as an Independent.
