(Radio Iowa) — U-S Senator Joni Ernst doesn’t put much faith in gun control legislation which passed the U-S House on Wednesday ever seeing the light of day in the Senate. The bill would require background checks for virtually all sales of firearms nationwide. Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, questions the intent of the legislation, which was pushed through the Democratic-majority House.

“I don’t know that that one will be coming up,” Ernst says. “We should go back and, of course, scrutinize the text of the language and what we are trying to accomplish.” Under current law, background checks only have to be done by licensed gun dealers, not those who are unlicensed.

The House bill would require background checks by both. Ernst served in the Iowa Army National Guard for 22 years and is the first female combat veteran elected to the U-S Senate. Ernst remains skeptical of the first gun control legislation to pass the House in more than two decades. “We certainly want to make sure that we are protecting our Second Amendment rights,” Ernst says. “I’ll be honest, it’s a House bill right now. I have not had the time to go back and read the text.”

Iowa Congressman Steve King, a Republican, voted against what he called “a resolution that seeks to place unconstitutional restrictions on the God-given, 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms enshrined for all Americans in our Constitution.”

King urged President Trump to veto the bill, should it reach his desk. Iowa Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer, a Democrat, voted for the Background Checks Act of 2019. In a statement, Finkenauer said: “It’s long past time Congress came together to pass a bipartisan bill addressing gun violence.”

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley criticized the Pentagon last year for spending ten-thousand dollars on a toilet seat. Now, Iowa’s other U-S senator is sponsoring legislation she says targets scores of other incidents of excessively wasteful spending. Senator Joni Ernst is blasting California’s “bullet train” project, which Ernst says is 13 years behind schedule and 44-billion dollars over its original price tag.

“Hard-working Iowans should not be footing the bill for this out-of-control spending,” Ernst says. “That’s why I’ve introduced the Billion-Dollar Boondoggle Act which would require an annual report to taxpayers listing every government-funded project that is one-billion dollars or more over budget, or five years or more behind schedule.” Ernst calls the bullet train project “infamous,” and says her legislation is vital to ending such cases where federal funds are being wasted on a massive scale.

“My bill will bring about needed accountability and transparency,” Ernst says. “It will allow us to identify train wrecks, like the disastrous California rail project, before they become bottomless pits of taxpayer dollars.” Planners say the high-speed train project will eventually carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about two-and-a-half hours. The original cost was estimated at 35-billion dollars. The latest projections by the High-Speed Rail Authority show it in excess of 77-billion.