Apr 5, 2018 4 min read

If Washington, D.C., is the swamp, then Scott Pruitt is one of its biggest gators.

The Environmental Protection Agency administrator is now mired knee-deep in the muck after it was revealed last week that he paid the nominal price of $50 per night to stay periodically at a lobbyist’s posh apartment in the Capitol Hill section of the city.

In defending those lodging payments, EPA officials made the laughable claim that the stipend extrapolated over an entire month would equal about $1,500 rent. Maybe you’ll find that kind of rent in Washington, Pa., but good luck getting that kind of deal in Washington, D.C.

This followed a similar episode in which Pruitt demanded to fly privately or in first-class with the elites rather than in coach among the riffraff. Pruitt claimed at the time the private planes and upgraded seating were out of concerns that he might get an earful from other passengers upset about his dismantling of the EPA that he heads. As if citizens expressing opinions to their leaders is a bad thing.

The total cost over the first year for Pruitt’s comfort in the friendly skies amounted to $163,000 of your tax money, according to some accounts.

Now, there are revelations that he personally authorized massive raises for two of his closest staffers after White House officials denied the initial requests. Pruitt apparently used an EPA loophole through the Safe Drinking Water Act designed to quickly hire workers without executive approval. But instead of hiring the 30 workers that the acts allows, Pruitt just gave his two closest aides their fat pay raises.

Despite all of this conduct, which would seem to be the antithesis of what Americans want from their federal leaders, it’s unlikely that Pruitt will feel the wrath of President Trump as so many other cabinet officials have experienced over the past year.

That’s because Pruitt is executing the president’s mission flawlessly by dismantling the EPA and inhibiting the agency’s ability to carry out its core mission, which, of course, is “environmental protection.”

As news was breaking last week of Pruitt’s subsidized living arrangement in the nation’s capital, he was busy spending time rolling back Obama-era motor vehicle fuel efficiency standards. The previous regulation required automakers to increase their fuel efficiency standards to an average of 50 miles per gallon across the fleet by 2025, with some obvious exceptions for trucks and performance cars.

Pruitt didn’t think that goal was realistic. Maybe it wasn’t, but those regulations were already pushing manufacturers to innovate and build more fuel-efficient vehicles. And with those standards came a rather large cost savings for the consumer at the gasoline pump.

He’s also found ways to conveniently dismiss scientific research that doesn’t align with his environmental views. That’s problematic for anyone who is in charge of a government organization, whether it’s a federal agency or the local planning commission.

The argument in favor of Pruitt is that he’s trying to balance economic issues facing the private sector with the need to protect our environment. Many conservatives felt the Obama Administration went too far in the other direction, stifling potential economic growth. Balance is the key with the EPA, but now the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

The disregard in which Pruitt spends taxpayer money and the ethical lapses of cozying up to lobbyists alone should be his undoing. But it remains to be seen whether this behavior isn’t just accepted, but condoned.

When it comes to Pruitt’s behavior and his record on environmental protection, the water is rather murky.