Jonathon Berman, jonathon.berman@sierraclub.org
Washington, DC -- On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that, even after he was discovered and publicly admonished for taking private plane travel, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has repeatedly flown first class at the taxpayers’ expense. The more than $70,000 in private travel includes:
$1,641.43 on a first-class trip from D.C. to New York City, a cost more than six times that of two media aides who traveled with him in coach
$36,068.50 military jet flight from Cincinnati to New York to catch a plane to Rome that was part of a round-trip ticket costing $7,003.52
$2,000 and $2,600 on at least four occasions on first-class tickets back home to Oklahoma
$4,680.04 in first-class travel to Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Little Rock
$2,903.56 to address the Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank Meeting in Colorado Springs
These flights are on top of the tens of thousands of dollars Pruitt has spent on private plane use -- including individual flights costing $14,285, $20,000, and $36,000 on individual flights -- turning down commercial travel and at one point, travel aboard Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper’s plane. Pruitt has also spent nearly $25,000 on a soundproof communications booth in his office, and is using EPA criminal investigators as personal security guards for unheard of round-the-clock protection.
Pruitt has repeatedly advocated for and defended Donald Trump’s budget plans, which called for an approximate 30-percent cut to the EPA.
This all comes on the heels of Pruitt’s EPA hitting a 10-year low for environmental enforcement, all while Pruitt has repeatedly met with the very same polluters the Agency is tasked with regulating.
In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:
"Scott Pruitt is pushing to gut the EPA's budget and shredding clean air and water safeguards on behalf of corporate polluters, all from a first class seat paid for by you and me. Pruitt's hypocrisy is boundless, and his dangerously skewed priorities and extravagant spending habits make it clear he doesn't work for the American people: he's in this for himself and the fossil fuel special special interests who've given him thousands in campaign cash. Anyone seriously interested in draining the swamp has to start by sending Pruitt packing."
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.