My 30+ years in the private sector were marked by a pre-trip cost justifications for any significant or material travel expenditure. What return can be expected by the trip? Are there alternatives to the travel which would accomplish the objective? How does the expenditure rank with other, competing priorities?  

It's obvious that at Pruitt's Federal level and as seen in others, no such considerations are contemplated and travel arrangements appear to be executed by whim and a flagrant disregard for taxpayers' dollars by those who boast to be guardians of the same.