Pressure mounts on US environment chief

Pruitt faces scrutiny use of public money and a rental arrangement linked to lobbyist

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt remained under pressure on Sunday over his use of public money and a rental arrangement linked to an energy sector lobbyist — despite Donald Trump’s tweeted support.

“While security spending was somewhat more than his predecessor,” the president wrote on Saturday night, “Scott Pruitt has received death threats because of his bold actions at EPA. Record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars.”

Earlier, the Associated Press reported that the EPA spent “millions of dollars” on a fulltime security detail more than three times the size of that which looked after Pruitt’s predecessor. Reuters reported that Pruitt’s use of a condominium owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist was being investigated by the House oversight committee.

“Rent was about market rate,” Trump claimed, “travel expenses OK. Scott is doing a great job!”

In fact Pruitt rented a room in a Capitol Hill town house coowned by the wife of energy industry lobbyist Steven Hart for $50 (Dh183) a night, reported to be less than a third of the price of similar properties. Hart lobbies for companies regulated by the EPA.

Pruitt is a vocal critic of accepted climate change science who sued the EPA more than a dozen times when he was Oklahoma attorney-general. In office, he has presided over a rollback of environmental protections often established under Barack Obama.

‘Unforced errors’

On Sunday, Republicans criticised his behaviour but backed his work. Asked on CBS’s Face the Nation if attacks on Pruitt were all generated by environmentalists who did not like what he was doing, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said: “Some of it is — but all of it isn’t.” Pruitt was making “unforced errors” he said. “They are stupid. There are a lot of problems we can’t solve. But you can behave.”

Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, meanwhile, told NBC’s Meet the Press Pruitt should keep his job because he was “following through with the policies the president said he wanted to implement”.

Critics of Pruitt were “nitpicking little things”, Rounds said, adding that though he was not going to call such stories “fake news” — a loaded term favoured by Trump — “sometimes we over-blow something”.