WASHINGTON — In theory, Utahns elect two senators and three House members to represent their interests in the nation's capital.

In practice, state and local governments, as well as public universities, water districts and other publicly funded organizations, combined to spend more than $7 million — much if not most of it taxpayer money — from 1998 to mid-2004 lobbying Congress or hiring outside lobbyists to do it for them, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity, released Thursday.

"It's almost like the lobbyist tax," Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, told the center.

"If you are from a local entity and you are trying to get funded and you don't have a senior lawmaker on the right committee in Congress, you have to basically pay a tax to lobbyists to get recognized," Ashdown said.

The University of Utah tops the list of public Utah entities spending money on lobbyists, the center's study shows, spending $1.8 million over the past 5 1/2 years.

The U.'s Nancy Lyon, head of government relations, says money spent on lobbyists is a great buy. "We get between $300 million and $500 million a year in federal monies; and we're proud of that."

The grants, research monies and other cash "are a great asset" to the U.'s mission, to U. students and to the Utah economy as a whole, says Lyon.

At $320,000 in 2003 and $300,000 in 2005, the lobbyists are costing 1 percent of the federal grants and other cash coming into the U., "a very wise investment," says Lyon, a former Utah House member and, before taking the U. job, a well-known lobbyist on Utah's Capitol Hill.

The U. just switched lobbyists from the Timmons Group (bought out by WWP Group) to a three-firm consortium whose principals have close ties to Utahns. One principal, said Lyon, is the former chief of staff to the House Resource Committee when former Utah Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, chaired the committee. Another principal has close ties with former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who now heads the huge federal Health and Human Services Department. The lobbyists "know the laws, the system and the key people" in Congress and the federal bureaucracy, said Lyon. "We're going to work that funding source very aggressively."

Nationally, 1,400 different local governments spent more than $357 million on lobbying, whereas more than 300 universities spent $141.7 million on lobbying from 1998 to 2004, the report found. State governments and U.S. territories combined to spend $64 million.

Utah's state government spent nearly $1.2 million over the past 5 1/2 years, the report found.