Secretive, costly trips distinguish EPA chief
WASHINGTON — Just days after helping orchestrate the United States’ exit from a global climate accord last June, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt embarked on a whirlwind tour aimed at championing President Donald Trump’s agenda at home and abroad.
On Monday, June 5, accompanied by his personal security detail, Pruitt settled into his $1,641.43 first-class seat for a short flight from Washington, D.C., to New York City. His ticket cost more than six times that of the two media aides who sat in coach, according to agency travel vouchers; the records do not show whether his security detail accompanied him at the front of the plane.
In Manhattan, Pruitt made two brief television appearances praising the White House’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, stayed with staff at an upscale hotel near Times Square and returned to Washington the next day.
That Wednesday, after traveling with Trump on Air Force One for an infrastructure event in Cincinnati, Pruitt and several staffers raced to New York on a military jet, at a cost of $36,068.50, to catch a plane to Rome.
The trans-Atlantic flight was part of a round-trip ticket for the administrator that cost $7,003.52, according to EPA records — several times what was paid for other officials who went. The documents do not explain the discrepancy.
In Rome, Pruitt and a group of aides and security personnel got private tours of the Vatican and met with papal officials, business executives and legal experts before heading briefly to a meeting of environmental ministers in Bologna. Pruitt departed the Group of Seven summit a day early, before negotiations had concluded, to attend a Cabinet meeting at which Trump’s deputies lauded the president’s job performance.
In total, the taxpayerfunded travel for Pruitt and his top aides during that stretch in early June cost at least $90,000, according to months of receipts obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project under the Freedom of Information Act. That figure does not account for the costs of Pruitt’s round-the-clock security detail, which have not been disclosed.
In an interview Sunday, EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said all of Pruitt’s travel expenses have been approved by federal ethics officials.
“He’s trying to further positive environmental outcomes and achieve tangible environmental results” through his travel, she said, adding that in the case of the New York trip, “He’s communicating the message about his agenda and the president’s agenda.”
As he enters his second year in charge of the EPA, Pruitt is distinguishing himself from his predecessors in ways that go beyond policy differences. His travel practices, which tend to be secretive, are integral to how he approaches his role.
Pruitt tends to bring a larger entourage of political advisers on his trips than past administrators. But while the aides usually fly coach, according to travel vouchers through August obtained by The Washington Post separately from the Environmental Integrity Project, he often sits in first or business class, which previous administrators typically eschewed.
Last year, Pruitt promoted U.S. natural-gas exports in Morocco, sat on a panel about the rule of law in Rome and met with his counterparts from major industrialized countries. This year, he plans to travel to Israel, Australia, Japan, Mexico and possibly Canada, according to officials familiar with his schedule. None of those visits have been officially announced.
Pruitt plans to meet with his foreign counterparts and U.S. and foreign business officials abroad, as well as tour energy facilities.
In an interview Friday, Bowman said the agency doesn’t release Pruitt’s schedule in advance “due to security concerns” and because it could be a “distraction” from the trips. But she added that he has received government invitations for all his foreign trips.
Federal regulations state that government travelers are required to “exercise the same care in incurring expenses that a prudent person would exercise if traveling on personal business . . . and therefore, should consider the least expensive class of travel that meets their needs.”