Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and his staff spent roughly $124,000 in excessive travel costs during a ten-month period, according to a new report from EPA's internal watchdog. Pruitt, who resigned from EPA almost a year ago amidst a litany of ethics allegations, and his personal security detail flew in first or business class "without sufficient justification and, initially without appropriate approval authority," the report says . The EPA's Office of the Inspector General recommended that the agency consider recovering the estimated $123,942 in excessive costs. In a statement, the EPA says it believes that it complied with federal travel regulations, "making cost recovery inappropriate." The audit reviewed 40 trips, including six canceled ones, that Pruitt planned or took in 2017. Nearly half of those trips stopped in, or were to, Tulsa, Okla., where Pruitt maintained a personal residence while he was the nation's top environmental steward. The
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