A group of top Democrats are upping the pressure on Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to formally report his spending to Congress.
A letter they wrote to Pruitt Friday say that he violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits agencies from spending more than legally allowed, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which requires agencies to inform Congress when redecorating or furniture expenditures cost more than $5,000.
The letter was sent by Democratic Sens. Tom Udall of New Mexico, Tom Carper of Delaware, and Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Peter DeFazio of Oregon, pressing Pruitt to immediately comply with the law by reporting the violations and provide all required information to Congress. All four lawmakers hold leadership positions on committees tasked with overseeing EPA spending.
The Government Accountability Office issued a legal opinion in April that found the EPA violated the law when the agency used federal funds totaling more than $43,000 to install a soundproof privacy booth in Pruitt’s office.
“In our leadership positions on the Congressional committees charged with overseeing EPA programs and spending, it is critical for us to examine what management and budgetary failures caused this violation and how EPA plans to remedy such failures,” they wrote. “We urge you to comply with the statutory requirement to ‘immediately’ transmit such notifications.”
The lawmakers noted that the EPA’s chief financial officer did transmit a notification to both the House and Senate, which “retroactively” fulfilled the legal requirement for the privacy booth, but “it was incomplete.”
They said the EPA is required to report to Congress all amounts over $5,000 from the time Pruitt began working at the agency in February 2017.
The lawmakers said they have learned that the GAO, in addition to making its legal opinion on the security booth, sent a letter to the agency advising it to report all spending over $5,000 to Congress.
“Based on publicly available documents and the magnitude of the expenditures on the privacy booth, it is clear that the cumulative $5,000 threshold was reached early in your tenure at EPA,” they wrote. “In fact, we note that publicly available documents indicate that several large expenditures have been made that either would have contributed to triggering the $5,000 threshold or should have been immediately reported if the threshold was already met.”
They confirmed that none of the expenditures have been reported to Congress. They also provided Pruitt with a list of the items they have ascertained exceed the $5,000 threshold for reporting spending.
They want him to re-submit the spending booth notice to Congress with all other spending dating to 2017.
“Given your public statements regarding the importance of the ‘rule of law,’ we expect you should appreciate the importance of complying with these statutory requirements related to EPA’s expenditures of taxpayer dollars,” the lawmakers wrote. “We expect your prompt compliance.”
