Perry defends air travel choices

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is defending tens of thousands of dollars spent on flights aboard charter and government aircraft, as Congress widens its inquiry into the travel expenditures of members of the Trump administration.

In May, Perry and members of his staff flew aboard a chartered Gulf-stream jet to a Department of Energy event in Kansas City at a cost of up to $35,000, according to documents the Department of Energy sent the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week. Along with three other flights on government aircraft, the Department of Energy estimates it has spent more than $56,000 on noncommercial travel for the secretary and his staff.

“The Department of Energy strictly follows both governmentwide and internal DOE travel regulations and policy,” a spokeswoman said. “The secretary travels almost exclusively on commercial aircraft.”

The travel habits of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet have come under scrutiny after a series of incidents of seeming excess, including when Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s wife, the Scottish actress Louise Linton, posted on Instagram a photo of this summer’s solar eclipse shot during a flight aboard a government plane.

That has rankled some Democrats and the president himself, who told reporters he was “not happy” after it was reported that former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price ran up more than a $500,000 bill on charter flights and other air travel.

Price resigned last month after the disclosures. Federal inspectors general have opened at least five investigations into senior officials’ travel expenses, the Washington Post reported Monday.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General did not return a call for comment on Perry’s travel Monday.

In a letter to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly last month, House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., reminded the administration that Cabinet members should travel “by the most expeditious means of transportation practicable’ and ‘commensurate with the nature and purpose of the (employee’s) duties,’ and by no means should include personal use.”

In a memo to the White House in May, Perry’s chief of staff, Brian McCormack, explained the Gulfstream flight to Kansas City as necessary.

“I have determined other modes of transportation, including scheduled airline flights, will not meet the secretary’s schedule requirements,” he wrote.

The round-trip flight went from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to the New Century AirCenter in New Century, Kan., on May 17, for a “Small Business Forum & Expo” hosted by the Energy Department, as well as a tour of a facility operated by the National Nuclear Security Administration in Kansas City.

The New Century airport is about a 45-minute drive from the Kansas City International Airport, where American Airlines and Southwest Airlines fly nonstop from Reagan National. james.osborne@chron.com twitter.com/osborneja