U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, D-Hobbs, and U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-Silver City, have both landed on The Hill’s “Rich List” of the fifty most wealthy members of Congress. The annual list highlights the fifty wealthiest members of Congress, according to financial disclosure reports.

Teague is listed as the eighth most wealthy member of either the House or Senate, while Bingaman squeaks onto the list at number 50. The list shows that Teague has a reported 40.3 million and Bingaman at 4.8 million.

Teague made his money through his company, Teaco Energy Services, while Bingaman “has a number of investments across the world.”

The list isn’t particularly accurate, as evidenced by the description of how the list is put together, using annual financial disclosure forms as of the end of 2008:

The reports are not models of transparency so the dollar numbers in the list are best guesses rather than precise figures.Lawmakers declare assets and liabilities in ranges. One range, for example, is for values between $1 million and $5 million. Another is from $5 million to $25 million. In all cases, The Hill used the number at the bottom range. Thus, the numbers arrived at are the minimum that the lawmakers are worth, and almost certainly understate their wealth. The Hill deducted liabilities from assets before arriving at the final figure. If a financial disclosure report had exact amounts listed, those numbers were used instead, but very few forms gave information so detailed.

If the spouse of a member of Congress is wealthy, the numbers are even more undervalued. The Hill explains, “Spouses only have to report assets and debts worth more than $1 million as ‘over $1 million,’ whether or not the item is valued at $2 million or $2 billion.”

A similar list put together by Roll Call last year included Bingaman and then-Congressman Steve Pearce, the Hobbs Republican who represented the seat that Teague now holds, on its list.

Bingaman’s value on the Roll Call list from last year was at $6.2 million, so Bingaman took a significant hit to his investments over the course of 2008. Pearce, on that list, was valued at 8.4 million.