While the head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs faces calls to be fired for the cover-up of $120,000 in taxpayer financed air trips, EPA director Scott Pruitt’s defending his own high-priced trips.
In an interview with the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, Pruitt said security decisions were behind his use of first-class airline tickets or military jets.
“Unfortunately…we’ve had some incidents on travel dating back to when I first started serving in the March-April time frame,” he said. “We live in a very toxic environment politically, particularly around issues of the environment.”
During the interview with the newspaper, Pruitt confirmed he flew first class from the Washington area to Boston to reach New Hampshire.
“We’ve reached the point where there’s not much civility in the marketplace and it’s created, you know, it’s created some issues and the (security) detail, the level of protection is determined by the level of threat,” he added.
Confirmation came just a few days after the Washington Post reported that taxpayers had footed nearly $90,000 for Pruitt and his top aides to fly during one period last June. It included first-class seats and a ride on a military jet.
“I’m not involved in any of those decisions. Those are all made by the (security) detail, the security assessment in addition to the chief of staff,” said the former Oklahoma Attorney General in his first public comments since the Post report.
He used the interview with the Union Leader to also defend his actions as EPA Administrator and to criticize the agency’s operations under the Obama administration.
“Everybody looks at the past administration as being an environmental savior,” said Pruitt who went on to say 40 percent of the country lived in areas that failed to meet air quality standards.
“You had more sites on the Superfund list when they left office than when they came in. Now I ask you, objectively, ‘What did they do to improve the environment compared to what we’re doing?'”