Congressional travel disclosure records showed that the Securities Industry Association picked up his entire $4,549 tab, which included $1,355 for meals.

An analysis of congressional trips by Medill News Service, in partnership with American Public Media's Marketplace program and politicalmoneyline.com, shows that private interest groups spent approximately $17.4 million to send federal lawmakers on more than 5,800 trips since Jan. 1, 2000.

In the first five months of this year alone, private groups paid more than $1.7 million for 522 congressional trips.

The four-day trip undertaken by Mr. Moore in April was the only 2005 trip funded thus far by the Securities Industry Association.

Among the financial services trade groups, the Securities Industry Association has spent the largest amount on congressional travel since 2000, a total of $37,378. A close second is the American Banker Association, which spent $37,149, in the same period, but only $950 so far this year to send Rep. Eric Cantor, R -Va., to its advisory conference in Naples.

An analysis shows that few lawmakers on either the House Financial Services or Senate Banking committees joined Mr. Moore on taking trips funded by financial services groups, although many traveled widely on the tabs of other organizations.

Since 2000, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., a committee member, has gone on 61 trips costing $148,091 -- the eighth largest amount taken by any lawmaker. But the trips were funded by the likes of Essence Magazine and the AFL-CIO, not by financial services groups.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D- N.Y., who serves on both the Financial Services and the International Relations committees, was the ninth most-traveled lawmaker. Most of the $147,124 private travel funds he listed was spent on international fact-finding trips to India and Malaysia.

The leading members on the House and Senate committees that deal with financial legislation have done little traveling this year so far.

Ohio Republican Michael Oxley, the House Financial Services chairman, has not taken any privately funded trips in 2005. Neither has his GOP counterpart in the Senate, Alabama's Richard Shelby, chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

Sen. Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, senior Democrat on Shelby's committee, has taken two trips costing $1,212 - neither paid for by financial interests.

The senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, was the third most-traveled lawmaker from January 2000 to June 2004 - spending $52,000 on 50 trips. Three of those trips, totaling $1,571, were underwritten by financial services groups.

This year, with five trips costing $3,702, Mr. Frank has fallen to the 45th most-traveled lawmaker - and none was courtesy of financial groups.

Return to Power Trips: Congress hits the road