WASHINGTON — When Congress is out of session, members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation return to the state to visit places like Benton, Alma and Lonoke. Sometimes, though, they go on fact-finding trips to more far-flung locales, including Belfast, Addis Ababa and Lima.

In 2009, Arkansas’ U.S. House members traveled to Africa, Europe, Asia and South America on trips related to their congressional committees or their membership in an international legislative conference.

Rep. John Boozman, a Republican from Rogers, traveled the most, visiting 14 countries on three separate trips.

In April, Boozman traveled through Germany to Africa and the Middle East, with stops in Afghanistan, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ghana, Qatar and Rwanda. The trip was paid for by taxpayers, out of an account reserved for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on which Boozman sits.

Boozman and his colleagues flew on military aircraft.

He received per diem payments totaling $2,812.37 for the eight-day trip.

According to U.S. Air Force documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington group that monitors government spending, flying a C-40 transport for a 2009 trip made by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress to Europe and the Middle East cost $4,821 per hour.

Per diem payments are provided to members based on calculations made by the State Department on how much hotels, meals and incidentals cost around the world. Members are required to return any unused funds.

Boozman said he didn’t spend his time at “game preserves” during his whirlwind trip to three continents April 3-10.

Rather, he said, he met with high-level civilian and military leaders, to discuss the Millennium Challenge Account, an international economic development fund, to make sure U.S. contributions are well-spent.

“You can’t do that in a committee hearing room,” said Boozman, a member of the Africa subcommittee on the foreign-affairs panel. “You have to go out to these places.”

Much of the Arkansas delegation’s travel in 2009 was associated with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, a group that Boozman and Rep. Mike Ross, a Prescott Democrat, belong to.

Twelve House members are picked each year by party leadership to attend several meetings with their legislative counterparts in the 27 other member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Last year, the two Arkansans went on two trips as part of the group. In February, Ross and Boozman went to Austria, Belgium, France and Germany. They were each given a per diem stipend of $2,880.55. On top of that, the 10 members on that trip incurred $64,720.85 in incidental costs.

Then, in November, they visited Northern Ireland and Scotland on military aircraft. Per diem allowances for the trip totaled $3,623.81 each. Their wives joined them. Both Boozman and Ross said they paid for their spouses’ meals and expenses, but since they flew on a military plane, no airfare was required.

Boozman and Ross say the meetings are a crucial opportunity to encourage European legislators to press for more funding and higher troop levels in Afghanistan.

“I’d like to think that in this post-9/11 era, our NATO allies are more important to us than ever before,” Ross said.

Ross, a member of the group’s subcommittee on trans-Atlantic relations, delivered a paper he wrote titled “Pakistan: A Test of Transatlantic Co-Operation.”

The trips were paid for by taxpayers out of a travel account set aside for Pelosi, D-Calif.

Rep. Marion Berry, a Democrat from Gillett, traveled to Latin America for 10 days last February, with stops in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. For the trip, Berry was provided with $3,682.83 in per diem payments, which came out of the House Appropriations Committee’s travel budget. The committee also picked up $4,602.57 in miscellaneous embassy costs.

The trip helped Berry see how South American countries are using U.S. funds to eliminate drug cultivation and trafficking - spending Berry had backed as a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Berry said that after discussions his traveling group of five to 10 congressmen had with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in the city of Cartagena, he changed his mind on whether to ease restrictions on trade with the South American country.

Berry said that with the help of U.S. funds, the country, formerly in the grip of drug cartels, was more stable now than it was a decade ago.

“I would not have voted for the Colombian Free Trade Agreement” before the trip, he said. “I probably would now.”

After a side trip that Berry said members paid for out of their own pockets to the Peruvian ruins of Machu Picchu, which Berry said he did not explore because of rainy conditions, the group met with farmers a half-day’s car ride into the jungle.

There, he also met with workers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development, who were sharing expertise with local farmers who were changing crops, switching from coca (used in the production of cocaine) to pistachios, coffee and cocoa beans, which are used to make chocolate.

Air travel for the trip was provided by military aircraft.

U.S. representatives are required to fill out disclosure forms, listing the foreign countries visited on official business and the amount of government money spent on food, lodging, travel or other, nonitemized expenses.

Itineraries, provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Boozman and Ross, indicate that the congressmen are kept busy.

On the European trip in February, for example, the two arrived at the Brussels Hilton at 11:25 p.m. local time on Feb. 14.

Boozman and Ross needed to get up early for an 8 a.m. meeting with Ambassador Kurt Volker, the U.S. representative to NATO. Meetings continued throughout the morning with other NATO officials, before breaking for lunch hosted by the Belgian delegation. Open debate was held throughout the afternoon, interrupted by a coffee break, before the delegation gathered in the assembly’s headquarters for a reception.

Full days of meetings with European parliament members, members of the diplomatic corps and members of the military continued over the course of the week.

The next NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting will be held in May, in Riga, Latvia.

Boozman, who is among a crowded field of Republicans hoping to challenge Sen. Blanche Lincoln in November’s election, said that traveling to the Baltic state wasn’t on his mind.

“My next trip will be throughout Arkansas.”

U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, a Little Rock Democrat and father of 15-month-old triplets, didn’t make any official international trips in 2009.

Arkansas’ two Democratic senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, also did not go overseas on government business in 2009, according to Senate filings.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/15/2010