New Report Links Sununu and Alleged Travel Abuses : Politics: White House defends ski vacation paid for by lobbying group. Administration legal staff prepares to tighten rules.

The White House on Saturday defended Chief of Staff John H. Sununu against new allegations that he took personal and political trips at taxpayer expense and let private sponsors pay for a ski vacation.

As a result of the dispute over Sununu’s trips, President Bush’s legal staff prepared to tighten rules on his use of government aircraft.

The policy review by White House counsel C. Boyden Gray will likely urge Bush to establish a process in which Sununu would have to get a sign-off on whether his trips are considered official, personal or political, a senior Administration official said Saturday.

Sununu currently makes the determination whether he or a political entity should reimburse the government.

Gray’s review will likely recommend that Sununu follow the same guidelines as Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle when they mix political travel with official business, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In those cases, the Republican Party or a specific candidate’s campaign fund must reimburse the government.

Sununu came under renewed scrutiny in a story published Saturday in Time magazine. It reported that the American Ski Federation, a lobbying group, paid an $802 round-trip air fare for Sununu’s wife, Nancy, when the couple traveled aboard an Air Force plane to Colorado last December.

The magazine said a White House spokesman had responded that Sununu had assumed an educational organization, the American Ski Foundation, had paid the cost of the bill. Time reported that the foundation is defunct.

“Federal law prohibits officials from accepting payment for travel, lodging and other expenses related to an official trip unless paid for by a charitable or educational organization,” the magazine said.

Time said Sununu’s actions “point to the possibility of outright illegality.”

“The federation is a Washington-based lobbying arm for the ski industry, not a nonprofit educational group as claimed on documents released by the White House,” the magazine said.

“For (a trade association) to pay Mrs. Sununu’s expenses, a White House counsel conceded, would be ‘tantamount to a gift to him,’ ” the article added. “And that would be a flagrant violation of federal ethics law.”

It said Sununu also accepted free lift tickets, lodging and meals in return for speaking at the annual ski industry conference in Aspen, Colo., last December.

The three-day trip cost taxpayers about $30,000 in jet fuel and operating expenses, but Sununu and his wife paid nothing, the magazine said.

White House spokesman Doug Davidson on Saturday said: “(Sununu) has complied with all the regulations, and the review is still under way.” He refused further comment.