EDITORIAL: Trump’s EPA chief faces scrutiny over travel costs

As part of their watchdog function, the media play a significant role in identifying and reporting on profligate spending by government agencies. But it’s curious how those with the letter “R” after their names seem to come in for heightened scrutiny.

As Jazz Shaw of HotAir.com noted recently, the media have taken a keen interest in the travel expenses of EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. Most recently, a Washington Post article noted the travel costs for Mr. Pruitt’s round-the-clock security detail exceeded $30,000 during the administrator’s trip to Italy in June, according to documents released by the agency.

The report went on to note that the trip for Mr. Pruitt and his aides included private tours of the Vatican and meetings with papal officials and business executives in Rome. The total tab for the trip was approximately $120,000.

Left unsaid was any context.

Mr. Shaw points out that in 2017, Mr. Pruitt and his security detail made two overseas trips, spending $84,000 on a G-7 venture and $40,000 on a trip to Morocco. In 2016, Barack Obama’s EPA administrator Gina McCarthy had security expenses of $68,382, $45,139 and $74,737 for trips to Ghana, Peru and Tokyo, respectively.

She also spent $56,192 on security for a trip to Italy. In other words, Ms. McCarthy’s security bill in Italy was $26,000 higher than the one for which Mr. Pruitt is taking heat. And Ms. McCarthy also visited the Vatican for a discussion about climate change.

Ms. McCarthy’s predecessor in the Obama administration EPA, Lisa Jackson, was no better. Mr. Shaw noted that her security detail rang up a $155,723 tab for a 2011 trip to China.

Yet somehow, none of these expenditures raised any eyebrows. “I’m simply failing to find any sort of outraged pieces about how much all those trips cost or asking why there was a need for security details to accompany the EPA chiefs,” Mr. Shaw writes. “But ever since Donald Trump came to town, it appears to be a subject of keen interest. It almost seems as if there’s some deeper, hidden meaning here, but I just can’t put my finger on it.”

Indeed, it’s an enigma.

Republican and Democratic administrations — and Congress, as well — deserve all the scrutiny the Fourth Estate can muster — and more. But the aversion to fiscal responsibility is hardly a one-party problem — it’s endemic on both sides of the aisle.

Whether Mr. Pruitt could be a bit more frugal with his travel expenses is a matter of legitimate debate. But it’s hard not to conclude that those now racing to condemn the EPA chief are less concerned with how he spent taxpayer dollars than they are with shilling for the Trump resistance.