Firms Use Jets When They Court Official Washington : Politics: Swift travel is a currency more valuable than campaign contributions among those seeking influence.

As the John H. Sununu travel flap clearly demonstrates, American corporations seeking influence in Washington increasingly are using a currency even more valuable than campaign contributions: the corporate jet.

Like White House Chief of Staff Sununu, a number of high-ranking Bush Administration officials and members of Congress often rely on corporate aircraft to ferry them around the country for personal, political or official purposes. They include Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher, Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento), among many others.

Likewise, the national Democratic and Republican party organizations rely heavily on corporate jets, usually to transport members of Congress or top Administration officials to fund-raisers around the country.

The extensive use of private aircraft underscores the growing dependence of top public officials on the largess of well-heeled constituents and helps explain the resistance to proposed reforms. Sununu may be the most visible example but he is by no means alone.

On May 10, for example, a group of Democratic congressmen led by Fazio used three corporate jets provided by the U.S. Tobacco Co., Philip Morris Inc. and the American Family Life Assurance Co. to fly to New York City for a fund-raiser sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

And a month earlier, Gramm, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, used a plane provided by Hobbs Bonded Fiber Co. of Texas to make a 10-stop swing through the South to recruit GOP candidates to run in the 1992 election.

Publicly, neither the politicians nor the companies have much to say about this practice. Privately, however, the politicians acknowledge that it enables them to avoid the time-consuming hassles of flying on commercial airliners and company executives suggest that it gives them a political advantage that mere campaign contributions cannot buy.

Indeed, riding on corporate jets has become so popular and so widespread among politicians that Common Cause, the citizens lobby, and other reform groups are currently mounting a new campaign to close the legal loopholes that have allowed this practice to flourish.

What disturbs reformers such as Common Cause President Fred Wertheimer is that many corporations never receive any compensation for the flights they provide to politicians and, even when they are reimbursed, the payments rarely cover actual cost.

Under federal law, politicians seldom have to pay more than first-class fare for a ride on a corporate jet, even though the true cost of the flight far exceeds that amount. In Wertheimer’s view, this constitutes an unreported, under-the-table corporate contribution to the politician who flys on the plane.

“There is no justification for these guys getting these planes for anything less than charter rates,” he said. “The difference between first-class fare and the actual value of the flight on a corporate jet is a gift.”

Sununu’s trips vividly demonstrate that point.

When Sununu flew to a Republican Governors Assn. dinner in Chicago on June 11 aboard a corporate jet provided by Stuart A. Bernstein, a Washington, D.C., developer, the governors’ group paid Bernstein $1,888, or less than half of the flight’s actual cost of $3,986. Bernstein paid the remainder and considered it an in-kind contribution to the GOP.

Among top Administration officials, in fact, Sununu’s use of corporate aircraft could be considered downright modest compared to that of Commerce Secretary Mosbacher, who has made more than 30 flights aboard corporate jets since he came into office in January, 1990. Sununu has flown on corporate jets five times since his use of military aircraft was restricted last May 9.

Private aircraft used by Mosbacher, who was President Bush’s chief fund-raiser in 1989, include jets owned by Pepsico, Northern Telecom, Transco, Philip Morris, Enron, Sun, Arco, Laredo National Bank and Ameritech. Not coincidentally, many of the executives who have supplied him with airplanes are members of Team 100, an elite Republican group whose members each contributed $100,000 to Bush’s campaign.

Marcy Robinson, Mosbacher’s spokesperson, said there is no conflict of interest when her boss hitches rides on these planes because his job is to promote American business, not to regulate it.

Although Mosbacher is clearly the leading user of corporate flights in the Cabinet, Transportation Secretary Skinner and Energy Secretary James D. Watkins also have acknowledged having done the same on occasion. Most other Cabinet members have said that they avoid using corporate planes because it creates an appearance of impropriety.

Last October, Watkins flew to a fund-raiser in the Northwest on a plane provided by the Bonneville Power Administration. Skinner flew back to Washington on a jet owned by Amoco early last year after a private golf outing in Augusta, Ga., and a few months later he let Smithfield Foods Inc. fly him to a fund-raiser in Williamsburg, Va.

Under the law governing such trips, which was liberalized by Congress in 1989 at Bush’s request, corporations need not be reimbursed for flying Administration officials to nonpolitical events. None of the companies that provided jets for Mosbacher’s nonpolitical trips have received reimbursement. Skinner’s aides said that Amoco was repaid $278 for his flight from Augusta to Washington.

For political trips, federal election law states that companies providing corporate jets to politicians should be reimbursed the equivalent to first-class fare. After Watkins’ political trip to the Northwest, for example, Bonneville Power received a check for $1,141.13.

But some of these officials have found a way to skirt the federal reimbursement requirement for political trips--they invoke state laws, which generally do not require reimbursement.

When Sununu flew to Maine for a GOP fund-raiser on a plane owned by Fiber Materials Inc. on June 7, the company received no reimbursement. Instead, company president Maurice Subilia Jr. said he was credited with making a $2,825 in-kind contribution to the Maine Republican Party.

Likewise, when Skinner flew to Williamsburg, Smithfield Foods Co. was not reimbursed. Instead, according to Joe Elton, executive director of the Virginia Republican Party, company executives received two free tickets worth a total of $1,000 that permitted them to attend the fund-raiser where Skinner spoke.

Among members of Congress, Dole appears to be the leading user of corporate jets. For the last several years, according to his aides, he has traveled on corporate jets on virtually every trip between Washington, D.C., and his home state of Kansas--a luxury that he learned to enjoy during his unsuccessful 1988 presidential campaign.

As a ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Dole relies heavily on jets provided by big agribusiness firms such as ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland and U.S. Tobacco Co. All are reimbursed according to federal guidelines.

Likewise, Gephardt reported using corporate jets 25 times in the last two years.

Dole and Gephardt are by no means the only members of Congress who like corporate jets. In fact, according to congressional sources, the chief reason that Sununu’s flights have received so little criticism on Capitol Hill is that most members of Congress themselves enjoy using corporate aircraft for their own transportation.

Although federal law expressly forbids Administration officials or members of Congress from soliciting or accepting plane flights or “anything of value” from corporations whose interests they oversee, most officials have found ways to circumvent these laws, too.

White House officials contend that even though Sununu flew on planes owned by federal contractors and personally solicited one of those flights, he did not violate the law because the chief of staff has no direct responsibility over the contracts of these firms.

For members of Congress it is even easier to skirt the law by soliciting corporate plane flights through their campaign committees. While it is technically illegal for them to solicit such flights in their role as members of Congress, legal experts say, it is perfectly legal for political campaign committees to solicit any contribution, including a plane flight.

Legal or not, politicians seem to prefer to keep their use of corporate jets as secret as possible--especially since Sununu has come under fire. Not all such flights are subject to public disclosure, and some of those involved flatly refuse to talk about it.

When asked to disclose the details of the trip that Democratic congressmen took to New York last month aboard three corporate aircraft, Laura Nichols, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, replied sharply: “I could, but I’m not going to.”

Likewise, Mary Robbins, a spokesman for ConAgra, declined to discuss her company’s policy for flying politicians around the country. “We operate our planes in compliance with the law; we have nothing to say on that subject,” she said.

Despite the secrecy, the names of the companies willing to provide politicians with corporate jets are widely known in political circles. The Democratic and Republican parties are said to keep lists of available aircraft. As Nichols of the Democratic campaign committee puts it: “We know where to go if we need to procure a plane.”

As a result, demand for the planes often exceeds supply and some corporate executives say that requests from politicians seeking to use their aircraft are becoming far too frequent. “A lot of CEOs would be very happy if Congress changed the law and said you couldn’t do it,” said one company official, who declined to be identified.

Yet some companies do it gladly. The late John Amos, founder of American Family Life Assurance, made his plane available to politicians primarily because he enjoyed their company and their friendship, according to Kathleen Spencer, a corporate spokeswoman.

Thus it was a fitting tribute to Amos that when he died last year, Sens. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and other politicians flew to Georgia aboard the corporate jet to serve as pallbearers at his funeral.