President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reportedly considered leasing a private jet for Administrator Scott Pruitt’s travels last year.
A private jet company gave Pruitt’s aides a cost estimate of $100,000 per month, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
The aides reportedly decided not to go through with the plan because of the high cost.
{mosads}Pruitt has been under scrutiny for his travel habits, specifically his use of first-class travel for agency business. It was revealed that Pruitt spent more than $105,000 on first-class airline travel in his first year as administrator.
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement to the Post that “this is not news.”
“EPA’s [chief financial officer] regularly receives solicitations for this type of travel, we did our due diligence, found it was not as cost efficient and continued to fly commercial,” Wilcox said.
Pruitt’s aides were reportedly considering the arrangements before Tom Price stepped down as head of Health and Human Services after he was discovered to have used department funds to pay for chartered planes.
The news comes as Pruitt faces scrutiny after he was recently found to have paid the wife of an energy lobbyist $50 a day for a condo in Washington, D.C.
Multiple Trump Cabinet officials have faced scrutiny for their travel expenses, including Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin.