Lauren Lantry, lauren.lantry@sierraclub.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the Environmental Protection Agency Office of the Inspector General (EPA OIG) released its audit of former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s travel expenses. The report found that Pruitt spent $124,000 on first class tickets, excessive travel expenditures, and his unprecedented security detail. The audit recommends the EPA recover the funds from Scott Pruitt. Now lead by coal lobbyist and Scott Pruitt’s handpicked deputy, in a statement Andrew Wheeler’s EPA defended the disgraced Administrator’s travel expenses and made it clear it would not follow the IG’s recommendation to recover the wasted taxpayer money.
In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:
"Former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler is treating disgraced former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt the same way he treats corporate polluters: by letting them off scot free. In offering Pruitt a first class ticket to fly away from the report’s damning findings, Wheeler is following Pruitt’s corrupt example. If Wheeler respected the American people and the Agency he leads, he’d follow the Inspector General’s recommendation and demand Pruitt pay back the tens of thousands of dollars he wasted that should have been spent protecting our communities.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, 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.