House members lease cars; taxpayers pay

 The Buffalo News

By Matthew Spina

Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds' Mercury Mountaineer stands 6 feet high and extends 16 feet stem to stern. It chugs along at 13 miles a gallon in the city, 18 to 20 on the highway. He leases it for $500 a month.

Or, rather, taxpayers lease it for $500 a month. For $411 a month, taxpayers lease Rep. Brian Higgins a similarly sized Ford Explorer rated at 13 to 14 miles a gallon in the city, 18 to 20 on the highway.

For $808 a month, they lease Rep. Louise M. Slaughter a 2007 Buick Lucerne, a luxury sedan that can deliver 15 to 17 miles a gallon in the city, 23 to 26 on the highway.  Gas prices leaping to $4 a gallon have driven up the cost to fill a grocery cart, among other things. Consumers and builders are heeding the cry to save energy. But dozens of members of Congress ride in some gas-guzzling vehicles, which they select at public expense.

"We are kind of a sad big country sometimes," said Robert Ciesielski, who heads the Sierra Club in Western New York and believes the government long ago should have turned serious about renewable sources of energy. "We could be doing so much, and instead, we wait for the next big price increase."

What kind of example are House members setting?

"A poor example," said Ciesielski, who just bought himself a Hyundai Elantra. It releases in a year about half of the carbon dioxide of Reynolds' Mountaineer or Higgins' Explorer.

If they want a car made by an American company, how about the Ford Focus, Ciesielski said, if not a hybrid?

Under House rules, members can obtain any vehicle they want at taxpayer expense and chalk it up to the cost to run an office. Gas, insurance, maintenance -- taxpayers provide it all. U.S. senators don't get such a perk, but House members do, and about three in 10 take it. Some even take more than one vehicle.

"Like every American, I can obviously do much, much better," Higgins said this week, explaining that at the start of his second term he asked his staff to find him a sturdy auto at a reasonable rate, one that will hold up as he drives the 89-mile length of his district.

"But that was in the days of pre-$3 gasoline," the Buffalo Democrat said. "Clearly I can do much better."

Some members do.

Rep. Michael R. McNulty, D-Albany, leases a hybrid Mercury Mariner, but at a monthly cost of $816. That's why Higgins doesn't favor a ceiling on how much members spend on their cars. He figures they will spend more as they turn to hybrids that burn less gas.

Higgins was the only House member from Western New York to speak with The Buffalo News about the vehicles they select. A Washington aide to Reynolds wanted assurances he would be asked the same questions as the others. But Reynolds, a Republican from Clarence who will not seek re-election this year, never returned the call. Nor did Slaughter return messages left with an aide Friday and Saturday.

Slaughter, a Democrat from Fairport, told the New York Times in an article this week that she didn't take a car until 2002, when her district was redrawn to hug blustery Lake Ontario. It had good traction and a satellite tracking system, she said.

"I figured if I got stuck in a snow bank people could find me," she told the Times. "If I'm in an accident, they might be able to find me and not wait until the thaw."

The Times mentioned other cars driven by members in the metropolitan area: Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, D-Queens, leases a Lexus for $998 a month; Rep. Charles Rangel takes a 2004 Cadillac DeVille for $778 a month; Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Middletown, leases a BMW 530i for $500 a month and a Nissan Altima for his chief of staff for $200 a month.

The vehicles are supposed to be for official business only. But it's difficult to determine if members indeed use their vehicles only for job-related duties.

The National Taxpayers Union in Alexandria, Va., has found House members paying more for cars than most consumers would pay for the same vehicle, perhaps because the politicians tend to lease in two-year increments to match their two-year terms in office. An Internet search turned up better rates for a Lucerne than Slaughter's $808.

"If members of Congress want to behave as if they are CEOs or high-level business managers, why aren't they shopping around the same way a manager would be expected to do at a firm?" asked Pete Sepp, the taxpayers union's vice president for policy and communications. "Even well-paying firms have limits on how much you can plow into your perks of office. And here we are not seeing any limits."

The House in 2007 approved a rule requiring members to lease "low greenhouse-gas emitting vehicles" at the urging of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo., who drives a car that runs on cooking oil. Higgins says he voted for the rule. But the House turned to the Environmental Protection Agency to provide a list of acceptable vehicles. The list, reportedly, has yet to materialize.

Why don't members of Congress drive simple cars provided by the General Services Administration?

"There have been discussions about it," said Sepp. "I think that it has more to do with legislative-branch arrogance than anything else. They don't want to be told how to run their own affairs. They have their own pensions, their own personnel policies, their own police and so on."

The salary for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $169,300 this year. Taxpayers subsidize meals at their cafeterias, haircuts and memberships at their special fitness clubs. They can zip into free parking spots near the terminals at Washington's airports.

Some federal representatives probably know the shock of paying for their own gas these days. Higgins says he fills his wife's minivan and the personal auto he drives when in Washington.

But does the average House member really know what working people go through?

"No. They don't know," said Rosa Gibson, who deals with Buffalo poverty, particularly on the East Side, through the Community Action Information Center she runs.

"They should take their own money and gas up at their own expense," said Gibson, who uses her own wallet to fill her Buick Regal 99, which she uses to deliver food to shut-ins.

"We as taxpayers should hold them accountable and let them know we are fed up," she said. "We have had enough."