Scott Pruitt is even more under the microscope this week than last— but not for hastening the deaths of thousands or giving kids asthma attacks, it’s for giving his employees pay raises. He (or the staff he blames) took the additional money for the pay raises from the Clean Water Act budget. The EPA administrator is allowed thirty hires that don’t have to get White House approval.
That’s just the latest in a long and slimy list of Pruitt escapades I began to touch on last week, a list that keeps getting longer. He may not be long for the Trump administration if the bad press keeps coming, although he may stay on the president’s good side by doing things like fighting with California and making sure cars and trucks pollute more. (My bet is that if Pruitt tweets a photo of himself clubbing a seal, Trump will like his moxie and keep him for another couple years.)
Just since last week’s cartoon about Pruitt’s EPA, at least two more stories broke. Besides paying for pay raises for two of his employees out of money dedicated to the Clean Water Act, Pruitt apparently lived for the first part of last year in a condo provided by a lobbyist and his wife. He paid fifty bucks a night, but only for the nights he stayed in the Capitol Hill condo. But don’t worry, they held it open for him the other nights. This, of course, while one of the lobbyist’s clients received EPA approval for a nice pipeline. Ugh, the hits keep coming.