Overnight Energy: Spending bill targets Pruitt | Ryan not paying ‘close attention’ to Pruitt controversies | Yellowstone park chief learned of dismissal through press release

by Miranda Green and Timothy Cama - 06/14/18 6:06 PM ET

SPENDING BILL TARGETS PRUITT OVER SCANDALS: The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a spending bill Thursday with a non-binding provision taking aim at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt for his recent ethics scandals.

In a non-binding report attached to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s bill to fund the EPA and the Interior Department in fiscal 2019, the lawmakers sought to further crack down on Pruitt’s alleged behavior.

The language: “The Committee feels strongly that it is essential that agencies provided funding in this Act comply with all applicable ethics regulations. To that end, the Committee directs that none of the funds made available in this Act may be used in contravention of 5 CFR § 2635, the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch,” it reads.

But, there’s a catch: Since the language is in the committee report attached to the bill, it doesn’t hold the weight of law.

Sen. Tom Udall (N.M.), the top Democrat on the subcommittee that wrote the bill, pushed for the provision.

If the provision were to be in the main part of the bill, it would make it a violation of appropriations law for anyone at the EPA or Interior to break ethics regulations.

Violating appropriations law can carry numerous federal penalties, up to and including prison time.

Udall had wanted the ethics provision to be in the main part of the bill, but said he pulled back due to an agreement with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the subpanel’s chairwoman, to avoid controversial policy provisions.

Udall made it clear that the provision is aimed squarely at Pruitt. Pruitt has been accused in recent months of numerous ethical and spending violations, like renting an apartment from a lobbyist below market rate, using his position and staff to get his wife a job and letting lobbyists plan his foreign travel.

“I’m appalled at the number of scandals piling up, especially at EPA. Frankly, it’s hard to keep track,” Udall said at the Thursday meeting in which the full committee unanimously voted to send the bill to the full Senate for consideration.

“While I would have preferred bill language, I think the report language we are including sends a strong message,” he continued.

“These are regulations that cover situations like the use of one’s position for private gain and the use of official time to perform official duties. I think it’s just common sense to make it clear in a spending bill that individuals entrusted with spending taxpayer dollars must maintain a basic level of ethical behavior.”

Why it matters: This provision may be the closest thing to concrete legislative action that Congress has taken in response to Pruitt’s scandals.

But since the GOP controls both chambers, it would be hard to do much more than non-binding report language like this.

And while the bill had billions of dollars of other provisions that senators undoubtedly liked, the fact that this provision went through on a unanimous vote shows that, at the very least, nobody objected enough to make a major case of it.