EPA's Scott Pruitt pushes back on pay raise, condo controversy in Fox exclusive

Embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt fired back at critics Wednesday, defending his decision to take a $50 a day condo rental from the wife of a lobbyist and claiming he just found out about a controversial pay raise for two of his staff members. “My staff and I found out about it yesterday and I changed it,” Pruitt told Fox News in an exclusive wide-ranging interview. When pressed to provide specifics, Pruitt said he wasn’t sure who would be held accountable or if the person who authorized the raise was a career EPA employee or a political appointee. In March, Pruitt approached the White House and asked for substantial pay raises for two of his closest aides, Sarah Greenwalt and Millan Hupp. Pruitt asked to bump Greenwalt’s salary to $164,200 from $107,435 and Hupp’s to $114,590 from $86,460. Since the employees were political appointees, the White House needed to sign off on it but refused. According to The Atlantic, someone at the EPA used a little-known provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act to skirt around the White House’s decision and green light Greenwalt and Hupp’s salary increases...MORE