Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will testify before the Environmental and Public Works Committee in August, where he will likely face questions about the variety of ethical questions that have been raised during his tenure at the agency.
Namely, he is under scrutiny for reportedly asking EPA aides to help him with personal favors and setting up meetings to get his wife a job, as well as for claims that he retaliated against EPA employees who raised concerns about spending at the agency, ABC News reports. The cost incurred as a result of his 24/7 security detail and first-class travel have also been subject to scrutiny.
Last week, the top ethics official in the government asked EPA’s inspector general to investigate allegations that Pruitt misused his office for personal gain.
The main Senate committee with oversight of the agency met in a different hearing Wednesday to question two nominees to top positions at EPA. The chairman of the committee Senator John Barrasso said in a separate Wednesday hearing that Pruitt’s hearing has been scheduled for August because the EPA’s inspector general expects to complete several of those investigations later this summer and the committee could ask Pruitt about the office’s findings.
The top Democrat on the committee, Senator Tom Carper, said the hearing was “long overdue” but added, nonetheless, that he was glad it would happen.
“We shouldn’t go eight weeks before Mr. Pruitt appears and answers for his unprecedented misbehavior,” he said in his opening statement. “I think I speak for my colleagues – both Republicans and Democrats – that we’ll clear our schedules and make time as soon as possible.”
Pruitt’s long-time friend, GOP Senator James Inhofe, has said a number of the reports about the EPA administrator are just accusations not based in truth.
“This is the type of outrageous lies you hear in Washington and people don’t have a chance to respond to it,” Inhofe said.
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