The Environmental Protection Agency spent $1,560 on a dozen customized fountain pens last year, according to a report.
The 12 pens, bought from a Washington jewelry store, were emblazoned with the EPA’s logo and the signature of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and came at a cost of $130 each.
They were part of a $3,230 order that included personalized journals, the Washington Post reported.
“The cost of the Qty. 12 Fountain Pens will be around $1,560.000,” an EPA staffer wrote in an Aug. 14 email to Millan Hupp, who oversees Pruitt’s scheduling and advance. “All the other items total cost is around $1,670.00 which these items are in process. Please advise.”
“Yes, please order,” Hupp replied. “Thank you.”
The email exchange was revealed as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club. Thousands of pages of emails were released this week.
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement to the Washington Post the purchases “were made for the purpose of serving as gifts to the administrator’s foreign counterparts and dignitaries upon his meeting with them. This adheres to the same protocol of former EPA administrators and were purchased using funds budgeted for such a purpose.”
Revelations about the $1,560 pen order comes as Pruitt has been under scrutiny for months over his use of agency resources and taxpayer dollars. He has faced questions about his questionable housing arrangement last year, use of a security detail, travel aboard first-class flights, and a $43,000 phone booth installed in his office.
Pruitt has said some of the spending is the result of decisions made by the agency’s career staff.
But during a hearing before the Senate last month, Pruitt seemed to acknowledge there was some wrongdoing.
“There have been decisions over the past 16 months that, as I look back, I would not make the same decisions again,” he said.
