Watchdog group records Tierney’s travels

PEABODY – A Washington watchdog organization that compiles information on travel by members of Congress says U.S. Rep. John F. Tierney has taken 15 privately financed trips since 2001.Several of those excursions were paid for by the non-partisan Aspen Institute to places such as China, Jordan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Finland and Slovenia.The Aspen Institute is an education program that must receive prior approval from the U.S. House Committee on Standards and Ethics before offering travel to a member of Congress.”Aspen Institute programs are not funded by lobbyists or taxpayers and they must be in connection with a member’s official duties,” said Betsy Arnold, Tierney’s chief of staff. “This travel is always in connection with the congressman’s committee work, whether it involves education, labor or national security. It allows him to participate in some very serious meetings.”According to Arnold, without programs like the Aspen Institute, most members of Congress could not afford to travel and meet first-hand with people directly involved in the political issues of the day.Tierney, a Salem Democrat, is the senior member of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. He is also a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.LegiStorm, the watchdog group, associated 19 privately financed trips to Tierney’s office since 2001. However, four of those were by staff members, not the congressman.The most expensive trip, paid for by the Aspen Institute, was to China in 2005 when Tierney participated in international talks on U.S.-China relations.A trip in 2009 to Amman, Jordan cost $16,365 and was paid for by the Aspen Institute. Tierney attended a conference on Islam and U.S. Policy.All the other trips listed by LegiStorm cost less than $10,000 each and some amounted to only a few hundred dollars.For example, on May 11, 2001 Tierney flew from Boston to Philadelphia with a ground transport to Atlantic City, N.J. to address a group of Bell Telephone retirees whose issues he had championed. “I landed in Philly, got the connection to Atlantic City, spoke to the group of retirees, held a question-and-answer session, walked out and flew right home,” Tierney said Wednesday. The entire trip cost $847.Tierney emphasized that no taxpayer or lobbyist money is involved in the Aspen Institute, nor are agents or foreign governments part of the funding.”The whole idea behind Aspen is to get the Senate and House members together with experts, scholars and academics in other countries, in places where they can talk without interruption on very serious matters. We don’t get that opportunity very often on the Hill here,” he said.During the trip to Jordan, Tierney and others met with the king, the foreign minister and representatives of the country’s intelligence service. “We explored a lot of their involvement in other regions of the world, especially the Middle East. We talked about all matters of security and foreign policy issues,” he said.Tierney said the personal observations made during such trips led to reforms in the way Pakistan spends U.S. aid money. “Money sent to Pakistan could not be accounted for. The Bush administration was transferring the aid directly into the Pakistani treasury,” he said. “Some of it was being used to fight with India, and the helicopters that were supposed to be repaired with our aid money (for use against the Taliban) couldn’t even get off the ground. So the next time we did an aid package, we put in conditions. That’s just one of the constructive things that happened because of our travel there. I’ve never played golf on any of these trips.”Former U.S. Sen. Dick Clark, who established the Aspen Institute in 1983, said over 300 different members of Congress and 500 individual scholars have participated in the four-day foreign travel programs since its inception.”We have