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Over about six months in 2017, the AP reported this week, Pruitt paid $50 a night to stay in a Capitol Hill condominium in which three units belong to a corporation co-owned by the wife of J Steven Hart, chair and chief executive of lobbying firm Williams and Jensen.
The firm’s clients include Exxon Mobil and liquefied natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy, both with billions at stake in decisions over which Pruitt presides. At least once while renting the room, Pruitt met a lobbyist from Hart’s firm at the EPA.
A $50-per-night rate is significantly lower than most rentals on Capitol Hill. One-bedroom apartments range between $1,600 and $2,500 a month. Single rooms for one-night rentals average about $120. An EPA ethics lawyer told the AP Pruitt paid only for nights he occupied the room, totaling about $6,000.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/01/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-under-scrutiny-condo-dealThe firm’s clients include Exxon Mobil and liquefied natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy, both with billions at stake in decisions over which Pruitt presides. At least once while renting the room, Pruitt met a lobbyist from Hart’s firm at the EPA.
A $50-per-night rate is significantly lower than most rentals on Capitol Hill. One-bedroom apartments range between $1,600 and $2,500 a month. Single rooms for one-night rentals average about $120. An EPA ethics lawyer told the AP Pruitt paid only for nights he occupied the room, totaling about $6,000.
The housing arrangement surfaced on Thursday after ABC News reported that Mr. Pruitt had paid $50 per night to rent a bedroom in a condominium on Capitol Hill for the first half of 2017. The E.P.A. later shared documents with Bloomberg News showing that the arrangement was not a traditional monthly rental agreement; instead Mr. Pruitt paid only for the nights that he slept in the room. His payments amounted to $6,100 over six months.
A typical full studio or one-bedroom apartment in the same area would cost between $1,500 and $2,000 per month or much more, a search of current listings indicates. In a statement, Jahan Wilcox, an E.P.A. spokesman, referred to a memo from the agency’s designated ethics counsel, dated Friday, saying that, “Under the terms of the lease, if the space was utilized for one 30-day month, then the rental cost would be $1,500, which is a reasonable market value.”
Federal ethics rules generally prohibit employees in the executive branch from receiving outside gifts. Mr. Wilcox said the memo showed that the housing arrangement “was not a gift and the lease was consistent with federal ethics regulations.”
Continue reading the main story
Walter M. Shaub Jr., who until last July was the director of the Office of Government Ethics, pointed out that federal ethics guidelines say that “employees should consider declining gifts when they believe that their integrity or impartiality would be questioned if they were to accept the gift.”
According to the E.P.A., the landlord of the building was Vicki Hart, the president and founder of a health care lobbying firm that does not have business before the agency.
Her husband, J. Steven Hart, is the chairman of a Washington lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen, with several energy clients including OGE Energy Corporation, Cheniere Energy and Colonial Pipeline.
According to lobbying disclosure records, Mr. Hart’s firm reported lobbying the E.P.A. on behalf of OGE Energy, an energy company based in Oklahoma, on greenhouse gas regulations and other rules affecting electric utilities. The forms were previously reported by E&E News.
Mr. Hart did not respond to a request for comment.
E&E News reported that Mr. Hart said that he had not personally lobbied the E.P.A. in the past two years and was unaware that his firm had done so, and that a federal disclosure form listing him as having lobbied the E.P.A. on behalf of a glass-container manufacturer was an error that he would ask to have corrected.
Democrats in Congress were quick to criticize the agency chief. “From the very beginning, Scott Pruitt has acted as if the E.P.A. is his own personal fiefdom,” Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland, who sits on the House committee that oversees the agency, said in a statement.
Mr. Pruitt’s relationships with both Mr. Hart and OGE Energy go back several years. In 2014, Mr. Hart held a fund-raising event for Mr. Pruitt while Mr. Pruitt was the attorney general of Oklahoma. The Washington Post quoted Mr. Hart on Friday saying that he was a “casual friend” of Mr. Pruitt’s and hadn’t had contact with him “for many months.”
As Oklahoma attorney general, Mr. Pruitt joined with one of OGE Energy’s subsidiaries, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, to sue the Obama administration over a regional haze rule that would have required coal-fired power plants to install pollution controls. Mr. Pruitt eventually lost his case, which went all the way to the Supreme Court.
In March 2017, Mr. Pruitt met with OGE Energy as well as a lobbyist in Mr. Hart’s firm, according to a copy of his daily schedule that was released last year. Also last year, the E.P.A. asked a federal court to delay the haze rule requirements for Texas. A federal court later denied the request.
Brian Alford, a spokesman for OGE Energy, said the company was previously unaware of Mr. Pruitt’s rental agreement.
Mr. Hart’s firm through the end of 2017 also represented Cheniere Energy, lobbying on issues “related to the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), approval of LNG exports and export facilities,” according to a disclosure report.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-rental.htmlA typical full studio or one-bedroom apartment in the same area would cost between $1,500 and $2,000 per month or much more, a search of current listings indicates. In a statement, Jahan Wilcox, an E.P.A. spokesman, referred to a memo from the agency’s designated ethics counsel, dated Friday, saying that, “Under the terms of the lease, if the space was utilized for one 30-day month, then the rental cost would be $1,500, which is a reasonable market value.”
Federal ethics rules generally prohibit employees in the executive branch from receiving outside gifts. Mr. Wilcox said the memo showed that the housing arrangement “was not a gift and the lease was consistent with federal ethics regulations.”
Continue reading the main story
Walter M. Shaub Jr., who until last July was the director of the Office of Government Ethics, pointed out that federal ethics guidelines say that “employees should consider declining gifts when they believe that their integrity or impartiality would be questioned if they were to accept the gift.”
According to the E.P.A., the landlord of the building was Vicki Hart, the president and founder of a health care lobbying firm that does not have business before the agency.
Her husband, J. Steven Hart, is the chairman of a Washington lobbying firm, Williams & Jensen, with several energy clients including OGE Energy Corporation, Cheniere Energy and Colonial Pipeline.
According to lobbying disclosure records, Mr. Hart’s firm reported lobbying the E.P.A. on behalf of OGE Energy, an energy company based in Oklahoma, on greenhouse gas regulations and other rules affecting electric utilities. The forms were previously reported by E&E News.
Mr. Hart did not respond to a request for comment.
E&E News reported that Mr. Hart said that he had not personally lobbied the E.P.A. in the past two years and was unaware that his firm had done so, and that a federal disclosure form listing him as having lobbied the E.P.A. on behalf of a glass-container manufacturer was an error that he would ask to have corrected.
Democrats in Congress were quick to criticize the agency chief. “From the very beginning, Scott Pruitt has acted as if the E.P.A. is his own personal fiefdom,” Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland, who sits on the House committee that oversees the agency, said in a statement.
Mr. Pruitt’s relationships with both Mr. Hart and OGE Energy go back several years. In 2014, Mr. Hart held a fund-raising event for Mr. Pruitt while Mr. Pruitt was the attorney general of Oklahoma. The Washington Post quoted Mr. Hart on Friday saying that he was a “casual friend” of Mr. Pruitt’s and hadn’t had contact with him “for many months.”
As Oklahoma attorney general, Mr. Pruitt joined with one of OGE Energy’s subsidiaries, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, to sue the Obama administration over a regional haze rule that would have required coal-fired power plants to install pollution controls. Mr. Pruitt eventually lost his case, which went all the way to the Supreme Court.
In March 2017, Mr. Pruitt met with OGE Energy as well as a lobbyist in Mr. Hart’s firm, according to a copy of his daily schedule that was released last year. Also last year, the E.P.A. asked a federal court to delay the haze rule requirements for Texas. A federal court later denied the request.
Brian Alford, a spokesman for OGE Energy, said the company was previously unaware of Mr. Pruitt’s rental agreement.
Mr. Hart’s firm through the end of 2017 also represented Cheniere Energy, lobbying on issues “related to the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), approval of LNG exports and export facilities,” according to a disclosure report.
EPA's inhouse ethics advisor tries to retroactively approve of this arrangement by saying he paid the going rate - which is bullshit because he only paid nightly when he was using it - but it otherwise stayed vacant so he could drop in and use it whenever he was in town. And the other room was never rented either and the place was never listed for rental.
If he stayed there 10 nights he'd play $500, but the other 20 days the place was left open for him to use he never paid for.
He lived there for six months - so say he stayed there a total of 60 nights, that is $3000 for the six month where he had total control of the residence that would have cost us $12,000 if the place was on open market even at a low end area rate of $2000 a month.
You or I couldn't get that rate or arrangement. I'll never understand why these people are so bloody cheap like this and open themselves up ethically to this degree.
Add this to his 30 person security detail (completely unheard of for all prior EPAs), the cone of silence he had built at his EPA office for $30K+, his refusing to fly anything other than first class because of the riff raff and say it with me...
DRAIN.
THAT.
SWAMP.
