WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, rented a residence in Washington in 2017 that was partly owned by the wife of a top energy lobbyist whose firm, according to disclosure forms, conducted business before the E.P.A. that same year.

While the agency said on Friday that the arrangement was consistent with federal ethics rules, the developments come as Mr. Pruitt is already under fire from Congress regarding unrelated ethics questions. In February, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee ordered Mr. Pruitt to turn over documents related to his first-class travel at taxpayer expense, questioning whether he had received the appropriate waivers to do so.

The housing arrangement surfaced on Thursday after ABC News reported that Mr. Pruitt had paid $50 per night to rent a bedroom in a condominium on Capitol Hill for the first half of 2017. The E.P.A. later shared documents with Bloomberg News showing that the arrangement was not a traditional monthly rental agreement; instead Mr. Pruitt paid only for the nights that he slept in the room. His payments amounted to $6,100 over six months.

A typical full studio or one-bedroom apartment in the same area would cost between $1,500 and $2,000 per month or much more, a search of current listings indicates. In a statement, Jahan Wilcox, an E.P.A. spokesman, referred to a memo from the agency’s designated ethics counsel, dated Friday, saying that, “Under the terms of the lease, if the space was utilized for one 30-day month, then the rental cost would be $1,500, which is a reasonable market value.”