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EPA head Scott Pruitt is being investigated by the House of Representatives, Senate, White House, Office of Management and Budget, Government Accountability Office, and EPA Inspector General

Mark Frauenfelder

EPA head Scott Pruitt has gone on a multi-million dollar luxury item spending spree at taxpayers’ expense. With his soundproof booth, bulletproof limousines, and chartered private jets, he seems to think people care who he is and are out to get him, when in truth he’s just one of the indistinguishable swamp creatures appointed by Trump to dismantle the federal government’s regulatory agencies.

His expensive form of ego gratification has become so flagrant that various organizations in the federal government are finally doing something about it. “Scott Pruitt Is now being investigated by the House of Representatives, Senate, White House, Office of Management and Budget, Government Accountability Office, and EPA Inspector General,” tweeted Rep. Don Beyer (Dem, VA).

From Beyer’s press release:

This week the number of investigations into embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ethics lapses and wasteful spending grew substantially, and more may be announced in coming weeks.

The latest wave of investigations came as the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report saying that Pruitt had broken laws when he ordered the installation of a $43,000 “secure privacy booth” without informing Congress:

  • The General Accountability Office has already determined that Pruitt broke laws when he installed a privacy booth at exorbitant expense; the nonpartisan investigator has also been asked to look into the raises Pruitt gave to staff using an obscure legal loophole and his purges of the EPA’s advisory boards.
  • The House Oversight Committee asked Pruitt for a series of documents and witness interviews spanning many of his scandals.
  • The House Energy and Commerce Committee is now “seeking information on a flood of ethics questions and lavish spending” by Pruitt.
  • The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is investigating Pruitt’s use of multiple emails, and whether he evaded FOIA requests.
  • The White House said it would probe Pruitt’s relationship with an energy lobbyist who gave him a special deal on his condo rent.
  • The Office of Management and Budget will investigate Pruitt’s wasteful spending of $43,000 on a privacy booth.
  • The EPA Office of the Inspector General is currently conducting investigations into Pruitt over (1) his possible violation of anti-lobbying laws (2) his spending on security (3) his expensive privacy booth, and (4A) his travel, a probe which it subsequently (4B) expanded (4C) twice.

The EPA Office of the Inspector General is also weighing requests by Reps. Don Beyer and Ted Lieu and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to determine whether Pruitt violated any laws or regulations with his condo arrangement.

The Office of Government Ethics is not empowered to investigate or punish ethics lapses at the EPA, but its acting head still sent a letter outlining a series of concerns about Pruitt’s potential ethics lapses to EPA ethics officials.

While Pruitt remains in office, additional investigations of his many wasteful and unethical activities are likely to follow.

If you would like to help get Pruitt fired, Re:act recommends using this “NRDC tool to ask your senators to publicly call on Pruitt to be fired.”

Image: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America – Scott Pruitt, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

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