Democrats are jumping on new revelations about lobbyists planning Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s lavish trips to Morocco, Australia, and Israel to show conflicts of interest.
“The outsized role you have given lobbyists and non-governmental individuals in setting both your domestic policy agenda as well as your international travel is concerning and leads to even more questions about your ability to objectively serve the American people,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in a letter sent Friday to Pruitt asking for a full list of industry representatives that the agency has collaborated with on planning his overseas excursions.
The letter was sent as the latest reports show a trip Pruitt was to take to Israel this year was planned by Sheldon Adelson, a major Republican donor, who has promoted an Israeli water purification company with which Pruitt was planning to announce an agreement with during the trip. The trip was canceled in February.
“The latest media reports, in addition to the other investigations examining your governance of the EPA — including your excessive and unjustified first-class travel, exorbitant pay raises given to your staff, and frequent trips to your home in Oklahoma at the taxpayer’s expense — are damaging not only to you personally but to the EPA as well,” Markey wrote.
Other documents surfaced this week that showed Pruitt’s trip to Morocco in December cost more than $100,000, which is well over the roughly $40,000 the EPA said it spent on the trip. That trip was planned by former Comcast lobbyist Richard Smotkin, which Markey pointed out in the letter.
The EPA inspector general is looking into the trip after Democrats urged the office to open a probe over Pruitt’s use of the trip to promote energy exports from the U.S. Pruitt said the trip was meant to shore up a free-trade agreement that the U.S. finalized with the North African kingdom.
Markey’s letter also points out the New York Times report on an Australian trip that lobbyist Matthew Freedman was planning for Pruitt but canceled because of last year’s hurricanes.
Markey wants a full accounting by May 18 of the names, dates, and destinations of all foreign trips Pruitt took or was planning to take. The senator, who serves on the committee that directly oversees Pruitt, wants all names of individuals outside the government who were involved in planning governmental activities.
He also wants the names of agency staff who raised questions about potential conflicts of interest arising from using lobbyists and outside government individuals for official agency matters.
