First-class travel distinguishes Scott Pruitt's EPA tenure

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

WaPo reports that Scott Pruitt:
- Flies first class though his predecessors didn’t
- Sometimes takes military jets
- Travels with large group of aides, including unprecedented around-the-clock security
- Only flies Delta
- Stays in high-end hotels

Link to tweet

A few observations on the story @eilperin and I broke today about @epascottpruitt's “secretive, costly and expensive” travel habits. After reading through hundreds of pages of receipts for Pruitt’s travels, several patterns are clear…

Link to tweet

Read the thread.

2) First, Administrator Pruitt really likes returning to Oklahoma on official business – or at least he did early in his tenure. Last May, he appears to have traveled to the state every weekend, overwhelmingly on the taxpayer dime. http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Pruitt-Travel-Vouchers_2.21-5.29.17.pdf …

Link to tweet

3) His reasons included a tour of a chemical, a visit to a contaminated site and a meeting with the head of the National Rural Water Association.

Link to tweet

4) Then, according to FOIA records, he would stay the weekend at home in Tulsa. Mainly, he flew first class. Here’s his receipt for one of those trips, with a $2,680 flight:

Link to tweet

5) Our story focuses on Pruitt’s travel costs. But worth noting that he often takes a contingent of aides along. One example: More than half a dozen staff went to Italy last June, as well as security and advance folks. That means tens of thousands more in travel expenses.

Link to tweet

6) Here is Administrator Pruitt at the Vatican, where he had just landed after taking a premium-class flight overnight from JFK (after taking a $36,068.50 military jet with several aides from a WH event in Cincinnati to catch the flight to Rome).

Link to tweet

7) It’s not just Pruitt aides who go along. Trips require an advance person and personal security detail (whose travel costs haven’t been disclosed). The EPA also has sent an agency staff photographer on multiple trips (which all EPAs have done at some point).

Link to tweet

{snip the rest}

Health & Science

First-class travel distinguishes Scott Pruitt's EPA tenure

By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis February 11 at 10:36 PM

[e-mail]; [e-mail]

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 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 the District 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 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.
....

Juliet Eilperin is The Washington Post's senior national affairs correspondent, covering how the new administration is transforming a range of U.S. policies and the federal government itself. She is the author of two books — one on sharks and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other — and has worked for The Post since 1998. Follow @eilperin

Brady Dennis is a national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on the environment and public health issues. Follow @brady_dennis

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Hillary or Obama would be impeached for less.

[redstatebluegirl]

2. He is used to the oil companies paying his freight like they did when he was in Oklahoma.

Nothing but the best for the Oil boy.