A bill U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst wrote to expose public projects that are way over budget was approved by the Senate last week.

The Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act requires that any taxpayer-funded project that is more than $1 billion over budget or more than five years behind schedule be made public.

“A billion dollars over budget isn’t a rounding error, it is a train wreck,” the Republican senator from Iowa said in a written statement. “The Senate took an important step in curbing the runaway spending in Washington. Sunlight is always the best disinfectant and an extra layer of scrutiny will allow these bloated projects to either be swiftly fixed or defunded before billions more tax dollars are wasted.”

She cited these big projects that have blown their budgets:

• The electronic health records system for the Department of Veterans Affairs ($49.8 billion).

• Bay Area Rapid Transit extension in California ($12.8 billion).

• NASA’s Artemis moon launch program ($6 billion with no official cost estimate).

The bill was introduced in 2023. It was approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in July and was sent to the full Senate. It now awaits action by committees in the House of Representatives.