Scott Pruitt is hated by lots of people for lots of reasons, and so ire at him should always be taken with a grain of salt. But when the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency rents his apartment for $50 a night from a D.C. lobbyist, that rightly attracts attention and raises eyebrows.
Pruitt’s low-priced landlord is J. Steven Hart, chairman and CEO of the high-priced Washington law/lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen.
Pushed to explain that living situation in an interview with the Daily Signal, Pruitt insisted that his lobbyist landlord doesn’t personally lobby for energy companies.
But as Lachlan Markay of the Daily Beast points out, there’s evidence to the contrary. Lobbying disclosures filed with the FEC show that Hart, or at least the lobbying squad on which he served, lobbied the EPA on environmental regulations as recently as the fourth quarter of 2017 — the most recent period for which lobbying filings are available.
And while Hart hasn’t personally lobbied EPA on Cheniere’s behalf, he has done so for another Williams & Jensen client pic.twitter.com/Pm5lqE64qn
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) April 4, 2018
Whether or not that lapse was intentional, it’s still unseemly. Pruitt has been the dream EPA secretary for conservatives, deregulating industry and rededicating the agency back to its original mission. Lapses like these distract and put at risk that effort.
Pruitt should find an apartment less infested with conflicts of interest.
