Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has made yet another expensive purchase drawing criticism from the public. The spending this time? Thousands on personalized office supplies.
The order included personalized pens and journals, specifically 12 silver personalized pens with the EPA seal and Pruitt’s signature on them costing $1,560 alone, The Washington Post reported. The other items, including personalized journals, totaled $1,670.
Emails relating to the office supply purchase date back to August. Pruitt also asked EPA for an order of leather-bound notebooks, fountain pens and stationery, the New York Times reported. An EPA spokesman, Jahan Wilcox, told the Post that the items were purchased as gifts to give “the Administrator’s foreign counterparts and dignitaries.”
This also comes after a string of other lofty expenses tied to Pruitt, ranging from first-class flights to an expensive SUV. Pruitt previously blamed those items on legacy staffers and later said he implemented changes to prevent similar purchases from being made again.