Wheeler faces questions over Pruitt spending

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler was questioned Wednesday on his decision to not seek reimbursement from his predecessor Scott Pruitt for nearly $124,000 in expenses an internal watchdog deemed “excessive.” 

Wheeler said he did not know whether the EPA had the authority to recover the money from Pruitt during a House Appropriations Committee hearing in response to questions from Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.). 

“They didn’t specify what authority we would have to recoup that money,” Wheeler said of the watchdog report. 

A 2018 inspector general report found that Pruitt and his staff spent $123,942 on “excessive” first class travel in 2017 and recommended that the EPA demand reimbursement from Pruitt for his share of the expenses. 

Wheeler also claimed on Wednesday that the report had a “number of errors” and argued that the expense figure should be halved because Pruitt’s security detail was required to travel with him. 

He also testified on a number of other issues before the House panel. 

Regarding rulemaking for corporate average fuel economy standards, he said that career officials were weighing in, but that it would be “inappropriate” to send every comment to the White House since “sometimes comments from different staff contradict each other.”

Wheeler also defended President Trump’s proposed cut of more than a quarter of the agency’s funding in his fiscal 2021 budget request. 

“How do you justify the president’s cuts to programs to ensure that we have clean and safe drinking water?” asked Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.). 

“I don’t think it will affect us,” Wheeler told her of the proposed decrease, citing a $2 billion request for certain funds that help communities with water infrastructure as well as the agency’s update to the Lead and Copper rule. 

The proposed changes to the Lead and Copper rule would establish a 10 parts per billion “trigger” level at which cities would be required to reevaluate their water treatment processes and possibly add corrosion-control chemicals to city water.