While on official business last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price took five separate flights on private jets, according to a new report.
Price, a fiscal conservative, traveled to Maine for a health care industry Q&A, and he visited community health centers in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, Politico reported. Those travels, made from Sept. 13-15, cost at least $60,000, tens of thousands of dollars more than commercial travel.
The revelation of Price's chartered trips come as other members of the Trump administration are under scrutiny for their own travels. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reportedly requested an Air Force jet for his honeymoon. And EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt flies home to Oklahoma at the government's expense.
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Price's Obama administration predecessors, Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Kathleen Sebelius, flew commercially while traveling in the United States, per Politico.
HHS told the news organization that the secretary took private flights when commercial flights weren't available.
“As part of the HHS mission to enhance and protect the health and well-being of the American people, Secretary Price travels on occasion outside Washington to meet face to face with the American people to hear their thoughts and concerns firsthand,” an HHS spokesperson told Politico. “When commercial aircraft cannot reasonably accommodate travel requirements, charter aircraft can be used for official travel.”
In a phone conversation with NBC News, Charmaine Yoest, Assistant Secretary of Pubc Affairs at HHS, faulted the Politico story for what she described as a lack of context. “It’s a piece that doesn’t take into consideration the reality of what it’s like” to manage the travel schedule for such a large agency. “The demands on his time are tremendous.”
“Every single time [Price] travels, we are looking at the full picture of what his schedule looks like,” Yoest told NBC. “And we are working to do what is most effective and most efficient with his time and with the budget.”
The department declined to confirm the details of last week's flights and did not say who paid for them.
The organizations that hosted Price on those days told Politico they did not pay for his travel costs.
Price, who served in the House for 12 years prior to joining the Trump administration, once criticized House Democrats for their use of private jets, CNBC reported.
"I think we've made it halfway of where we ought to and that is cut it from eight to four jets," Price said back in 2009. "Now we need to cut it from four jets to zero jets. This is just another example of fiscal irresponsibility run amok in Congress right now."
