House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy is questioning Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt over his frequent first-class travel.
The South Carolina Republican and head of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in a letter to Pruitt addressed Tuesday, wants answers regarding how Pruitt has been able to obtain waivers to travel first class.
“Clearly, federal regulations prohibit a blanket waiver to fly first class except to accommodate disabilities or special needs,” Gowdy said.
Gowdy wants to obtain details about Pruitt’s air travel over the last year, including how often he has flown first class and whether the EPA granted him a waiver for the flights.
Gowdy also seeks to know why waivers were granted in each case, whether other EPA employees or security staff also sit first class, and the airfare cost of each first class flight.
The EPA last week said Pruitt doesn’t have a “blanket travel waiver” to fly first class, backing away from its previous explanation that he is pre-approved to fly first-class whenever he wants because of security reasons.
An EPA official told the Washington Examiner the agency submits the same security-related waiver for Pruitt to fly first class before each trip. The waiver has to be approved by multiple EPA officials before every trip.
The federal General Services Administration requires agencies’ oversight staff to approve first-class travel “on a trip-by-trip basis … unless the traveler has an up-to-date documented disability or special need.”
Pruitt’s travel has been heavily scrutinized in recent weeks after the Washington Post reported the EPA administrator and his top aides spent more than $90,000 on travel in just the first few weeks of June.
Democrats last week asked the EPA’s inspector general to expand an existing investigation of Pruitt’s travel to probe how he obtains a waiver to fly first class.
