‘85 Congressional Travel Costs Top $4.7 Million

Congress spent more than $4.76 million on foreign travel last year as members trotted the globe to visit dozens of countries, spend St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland or observe arms control talks in Geneva.

The House, with three out of every five members making at least one official, taxpayer-financed trip abroad, accounted for more than $4.08 million of the bill, according to records published in the Congressional Record.

In the Senate, 43 of the 100 members took at least one trip overseas, with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) emerging as Capitol Hill’s most frequent flier with seven trips. The Senate’s travel bill was at least $681,232.

Understated Costs

The actual cost of congressional travel is understated in the reports, which are required by law to show dates, destinations and amounts spent on transportation, food and lodging for members and the aides who usually accompany them.

But some reports fail to disclose the cost of transportation, which most often is provided by Defense Department aircraft at costs generally higher than what commercial airlines charge.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), for example, led a delegation of seven other senators and 18 aides on a two-week trip last August to South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. The group reported spending $70,360, but no transportation costs were shown.

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) headed two traveling parties last year, one of them for 10 days visiting West Germany, the Soviet Union and Spain. O’Neill said the 13 members and 10 aides spent $42,966 on food, lodging and incidentals, but no transportation cost was given.

Trip to Ireland

O’Neill’s other trip was to Ireland from March 13-18--dates that put the 10 members and seven aides in the Speaker’s ancestral homeland for St. Patrick’s Day.

Also in the House, a group of eight members and five aides headed by Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) spent $73,857 for a trip to the arms talks in Geneva.

After Stevens, the Senate’s most traveled members last year were James A. McClure (R-Ida.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), each with five trips.

In the House, Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach), a member of the Armed Services Committee, logged five trips each.