Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
Within one year, OMB must issue guidance requiring executive and independent regulatory agencies to report annually on projects that are over five years behind schedule or have spent at least $1 billion above the original estimate. Covered work includes major and defense acquisitions, procurements, construction, remediation, cleanup, and other time-limited endeavors outside direct spending. Agencies must identify purpose, locations, awards, start year, federal share, contractors and grant recipients, scope changes, original and current dates and inflation-adjusted costs, reasons for delay or growth, appropriations effects, and bonuses. OMB must report the information annually to Congress and post it publicly. The report is unclassified but may include a classified annex.
Who Benefits and How
Congress, taxpayers, watchdog groups, and journalists gain a recurring, comparable account of exceptionally delayed or over-budget federal projects. Agency oversight and acquisition officials gain common OMB definitions and data fields for detecting cost, schedule, scope, and incentive problems.
Who Bears the Burden and How
OMB must write guidance, collect submissions, publish the data, and report annually. Covered agencies must identify qualifying projects and document detailed performance histories. Contractors, subcontractors, grantees, subgrantees, and program managers face public scrutiny of delays, overruns, and bonuses. Classified details require separate annex handling.
Key Provisions
- Requires annual reporting on projects over five years late or at least $1 billion over estimate.
- Requires detailed cost, schedule, scope, recipient, contractor, and incentive information.
- Requires OMB to submit the report to Congress and post it publicly.
- Provides an unclassified report format with an optional classified annex.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Creates annual public reporting for federal projects that are more than five years late or at least $1 billion over their original cost estimate.
Key Policy Areas
Government Oversight, Federal Procurement, Budget Accountability
Primary Purpose
Creates annual public reporting for federal projects that are more than five years late or at least $1 billion over their original cost estimate.
Policy Domains
Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act
Identified Gains
- Congress
- Federal taxpayers
- Government watchdog groups
- Investigative journalists
Identified Costs
- Office of Management and Budget
- Executive agencies
- Independent regulatory agencies
- Covered project contractors
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
ReportedReceived in the Senate. Read twice. Placed on Senate Legislative …
Received; read twice and placed on the calendar
Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without …
On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, …
Passed/agreed to in House: On motion to suspend the rules …
Considered as unfinished business.
Considered as unfinished business. (consideration: CR H5159)
At the conclusion of debate, the chair put the question …
DEBATE - The House proceeded with forty minutes of debate …
Considered under suspension of the rules. (consideration: CR H4663-4664; text: …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Congress, Congressional oversight staff, Covered federal agencies
Positive-direction: Congress, Congressional oversight staff
Negative-direction: Covered project contractors, Executive agencies, Federal classification-review staff, Independent regulatory agencies, Office of Management and Budget
Government watchdog groups, Taxpayers
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "collector"
- → Director of the Office of Management and Budget
- "oversight"
- → Congress and the public
- "reporters"
- → Executive and independent regulatory agencies
- "disclosed_parties"
- → Contractors, subcontractors, grantees, and subgrantees
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology