President Trump on Wednesday signed the Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act, a law that requires the federal government to report publicly each year on taxpayer-funded projects that have run at least $1 billion over their original cost estimates or fallen more than five years behind schedule.
Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, sponsored the measure. The White House said the president signed it along with a second bill that gives people whose Social Security numbers have been misused a single point of contact at the Social Security Administration.
Under the new law, the director of the Office of Management and Budget has one year to issue guidance requiring executive agencies and independent regulatory agencies to submit information each year on every project that meets either threshold. The law defines a project to include major acquisitions, major defense acquisition programs, procurements, construction projects, cleanup efforts and other time-limited undertakings, and it leaves out anything paid for through direct spending as federal budget law defines that term.
Agencies must describe each project, list its primary contractors, subcontractors and grant recipients, and give its original and current completion dates as well as its original and current cost estimates in inflation-adjusted dollars. They must also explain the delay or cost growth, including any effect of insufficient or delayed appropriations, and disclose any award, incentive fee or bonus granted for the project and the reason for it. The budget office then sends the compiled report to Congress and posts it on its website.
The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent in December 2025, and the House cleared it by voice vote on Sept. 16. It reached the president's desk on Sept. 29. Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Jacky Rosen of Nevada joined Republican Sens. Ashley Moody and Rick Scott of Florida as cosponsors. In the House, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa led a companion bill that the chamber passed in July.
An earlier version that Ernst sponsored, with Hassan as a cosponsor, passed the Senate by unanimous consent in March 2024. The House approved an amended version that July, and the official bill record shows no further action on it.
When the House gave the bill final approval last month, Ernst said in a statement released by Miller-Meeks' office that going a billion dollars over budget "isn't a rounding error" and that "taxpayers deserve transparency." The same release said the bill followed a report from Ernst that identified more than a dozen government projects with a combined $162 billion in cost overruns.
The Social Security bill, sponsored by Rep. David Kustoff, a Tennessee Republican, directs the agency's commissioner to ensure that anyone whose Social Security number has been misused, or whose card was lost on its way to them, has a single point of contact throughout the case. That contact is a team or group of specially trained employees who must track the case to completion and coordinate with other units of the agency. The requirement takes effect 180 days after enactment. The House passed the bill by voice vote in December 2025, and the Senate approved it by unanimous consent on Sept. 17.