#DrainTheSwamp | #WhatTheyVotedFor
The list from Steve Benen might, ‘twixt now and Monday, have become obsolete; it’s hard to tell, some days.
1. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s controversial travel habits.
2. The House Oversight Committee is also exploring the EPA chief’s use of public funds for first-class travel.
3. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s behind-the-scenes talks with the National Mining Association.
4. Pruitt’s exorbitant spending on an around-the-clock security detail is the subject of three inspector general investigations.
5. The House Oversight Committee is also examining the EPA chief’s security expenditures.
6. The Government Accountability Office has already investigated Pruitt for exceeding federal spending limits when he bought a $43,000 phone booth for his office.
7. The White House Office of Management and Budget is also investigating the phone booth.
8. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s use of funds set aside for the Safe Drinking Water Act and diverting the money to give generous raises to two of his top aides.
9. The EPA’s inspector general is investigating Pruitt’s four-day trip to Morocco late last year.
10. The Government Accountability Office is investigating Pruitt’s ouster of scientists from the EPA’s science advisory committee.
11. The Government Accountability Office is investigating whether Pruitt broke lobbying laws with comments he made to the National Cattleman’s Beef Association.
12. The House Oversight Committee is investigating Pruitt’s living arrangement at a lobbyist’s condo.
13. And as noted above, the EPA’s inspector general is now also taking a closer look at Pruitt’s time at that condo.
Before the day was out, the msnbc blogger found himself adding to the list, sort of, noting a “controversy that should become the 14th” in a Reuters report describing a financial hardship waiver Pruitt’s EPA granted to an Oklahoma facility for a company owned by former Trump administration hand Carl Icahn:
The waiver enables Icahn’s CVR Energy Inc (CVI.N) to avoid tens of millions of dollars in costs related to the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. The regulation is meant to cut air pollution, reduce petroleum imports and support corn farmers by requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s gasoline and diesel each year.
And it does, you know, just keep going downhill.
This Is 