May 16, 2019

The EPA Finally Figured Out How Much Scott Pruitt Racked Up in First Class Flights and Luxury Hotels

The former administrator resigned in disgrace last year.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty

This story was originally published by HuffPost and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. 

Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and his staff racked up nearly $124,000 in “excessive” travel costs, according to a lengthy report issued Thursday by the agency’s internal watchdog.

Investigators looked into 40 trips that Pruitt took or scheduled over a 10-month period in 2017, which cost taxpayers nearly $1 million, and found $123,942 in wasteful spending. Those improper travel costs included flying first- and business-class and luxury hotel accommodations.

“Actions need to be taken to strengthen controls over Administrator travel to help prevent the potential for fraud, waste and abuse,” the EPA’s Office of Inspector General wrote in the 84-page report.

Pruitt resigned in July 2018 under a cloud of ethics scandals. He faced at least 18 federal investigations. 

This is a developing story and will be updated. 

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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