Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt may try to avoid addressing accusations about his spending, ethics, and travel during his much-anticipated testimony Thursday before Congress, but even his conservative allies want answers.
Pruitt’s opening statement for the first of two House hearings, posted online Wednesday, focuses on policy, with his usual message about returning the EPA to a “back to basics agenda,” emphasizing his cleanup of Superfund sites, combating lead in drinking water, and giving more power to states.
But lawmakers, including some conservatives, are expected to question Pruitt on the recent scandals that have put his job in jeopardy, even as the hearings are supposed to focus on the EPA’s fiscal 2019 budget request.
Pruitt is scheduled to testify before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee Thursday morning and at a House Appropriations subcommittee in the afternoon.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., perhaps Pruitt’s strongest ally in Congress, told the Washington Examiner he will be watching the hearings closely, though he still supports the EPA administrator.
“I’ve been pleased with the job Administrator Pruitt has been doing — rolling back regulations and restoring the EPA to its proper size and scope, but these latest reports are new to me,” Inhofe told the Washington Examiner. “While I have no reason to believe they are true, they are concerning and I think we should hear directly from Administrator Pruitt about them.”
Inhofe, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said he wants his panel to conduct an oversight hearing with Pruitt. The Oklahoma senator represents Pruitt’s home state, and he introduced the EPA administrator at his confirmation hearing last year.
Inhofe’s cautious comments show the central challenge in predicting Pruitt’s future at the EPA.
Even as some Republicans question Pruitt’s spending, ethics, and hiring decisions, his die-hard supporters stand by him, viewing him as the vessel to carry out a deregulatory agenda they’ve always wanted.
Still, Pruitt’s allies are urging him to be transparent and forthright in the hearings, qualifying that their support for him should not be taken for granted.
“Administrator Pruitt has put himself into a difficult situation by being so unwilling to testify [to Congress] on a regular basis,” Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
“The result is that, besides the normal hostility to be expected from committee Democrats, frustration has built up among committee Republicans,” added Ebell, who led EPA’s transition team after President Trump was elected. “My hope is that he will explain and defend his personal conduct in a candid, forthright way. On policy questions, he is an articulate exponent of the Trump deregulatory agenda. He has many allies in Congress for advancing that agenda. The two hearings give him a golden opportunity to begin working cooperatively with those allies.”
Pruitt has been under the microscope for several months.
The White House is investigating Pruitt, as are various congressional committees and the EPA’s inspector general, over issues including his $50-per-night condo rental deal with the wife of an energy lobbyist, spending more than $3 million on security, frequent first-class travel, and allegations he retaliated against employees who questioned his judgment.
On Wednesday, a White House official said Pruitt must address the allegations “in short order.”
“I can tell you that the president and the White House are aware of these issues and these stories, that they raise some serious concerns, there’s no question about that,” White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told NPR Wednesday. “We’re looking into those questions and concerns as well.”
“We know what’s going on over there. We’ve seen the reports and it raises questions,” Gidley added. “The EPA, and quite frankly Mr. Pruitt, are going to have to answer those questions in short order.”
The New York Times has counted 10 ongoing federal investigations of Pruitt.
The Government Accountability Office determined this month that the EPA broke federal law by spending $43,000 on a secure phone booth for Pruitt’s office without notifying Congress.
Mick Mulvaney, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, is investigating the phone booth purchase.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., recently demanded interviews with five top aides to Pruitt, escalating an investigation his committee is conducting on Pruitt’s spending and ethics.
Despite the ongoing probes, Trump has been reluctant to push Pruitt out, repeatedly praising him for advancing the president’s “energy dominance agenda” and delivering for “coal and energy country.”
Most prominently, Pruitt encouraged Trump to reject the Paris climate change agreement and has begun repealing and replacing the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s core policy to force cuts in carbon emissions from power plants to combat climate change.
Pruitt’s EPA, however, has suffered setbacks in the courts, and many of his rollbacks may go unrealized.
That doesn’t matter to some Pruitt supporters.
Conservative lawmakers hailed Pruitt, who, surrounded by allies at EPA headquarters, announced a proposed rule Tuesday that would block the agency from using scientific studies that do not make public the raw data used in the research.
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who authored similar legislation that failed to pass Congress, used his remarks at the event to compliment Pruitt.
“I know of no administration official who goes on the offensive, is not intimidated, and does the right thing regardless,” Smith said. “We couldn’t have a better head of the EPA.”
Indeed, some Republicans who will be questioning Pruitt Thursday said they prefer to focus on Pruitt’s aggressive policy moves, rather than accusations of outsized spending and hubris.
“I am sure he will have the opportunity to address the ethical questions, but that is not where I want to focus my time,” Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, a member of the House Appropriations Interior and Environment subcommittee, told the Washington Examiner. “The point of this hearing is for him to come and focus on policy, how the EPA is creating jobs, and taking a reasonable approach to regulating in a way that protects the environment. Let’s get to the truth of his conduct, but also recognize in some cases we have accusations against some people that really do not have any basis.”
Other Republicans are looking for more.
“What I would like to see from the administrator frankly is some contrition and admission that there are some things that have gone too far, if he believes that, and a plan for improvement,” said Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., a member of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee that is questioning Pruitt Thursday morning, according to NBC News.
Pruitt’s goal may be to reassure Republicans his personal issues won’t hurt his policy ambitions, but he faces a difficult task.
“I said it’s going to be pretty rough and be ready,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., told reporters of what he advised Pruitt during a phone conversation Thursday.
