US lawmakers, both Republican and Democratic, accepted trips worth nearly 50 million US dollars from corporations and groups seeking legislative favors over five and a half years, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing the most comprehensive study to date on the subject of congressional travel.

From January 2000 to June 2005, House and Senate members and their aides were away from Washington for more than 81,000 days on at least 23,000 trips, often to resorts and exclusive locales, the newspaper quoted the report by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity as saying.

About 2,300 of the trips cost 5,000 dollars or more, at least 500 cost 10,000 dollars or more, and 16 cost 25,000 dollars or more.

Lawmakers and their staff were treated to 25,000-dollar corporate-jet rides and 500-dollar-a-night hotel rooms, the study showed. Lawmakers accepted thousands of costly jaunts -- one worth more than 30,000 dollars -- to some of the world's choicest destinations: at least 200 trips to Paris, 150 to Hawaii and 140 to Italy.

Representative John A. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, who was elected House majority leader this year, and members of his office were among the top beneficiaries of privately funded travel, taking more than 200 trips during the five-and-half year period reviewed.

One of the largest corporate sponsors of lawmakers' travel was General Atomics, a relatively small San Diego-based defense contractor that makes the Predator, an unmanned spy plane now in wide use by the United States and other countries, the newspaper reported.

The company "largely targeted congressional staff members, spending roughly 660,000 dollars on 86 trips for legislators, aides and their spouses from 2000 to mid-2005," the study was quoted as saying.

Many congressional offices have voluntarily curtailed their privately funded travel since disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to bribe public officials, in part with lavish overseas trips, the Post report said.

Source: Xinhua