Pruitt’s EPA tenure distinguished with first-class travel
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 $1,600 firstclass 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 came along and sat in coach, according to agency travel vouchers; the records do not show whether his guards 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 transatlantic flight was part of a roundtrip ticket for the administrator that cost $6,687.76, according to EPA records — several times what was paid for other officials who went. (These flight costs and others reported throughout this story are the totals before taxes and fees are calculated.) The documents do not explain the discrepancy.
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 policy differences. His travel practices — which tend to be secretive, costly and frequent — 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.