WASHINGTON — To the annals of government projects that congressional budget hawks find questionable, wasteful and even droll add 100 more, highlighted in a new report from Sen. James Lankford.

The Oklahoma Republican, picking up the waste-cutting legacy of his predecessor, Tom Coburn, R-Okla., this week released a list of 100 “Federal Fumbles” he describes as “100 Ways the Government Dropped the Ball.”

Sen. James Lankford says his report highlights wasteful or duplicative spending. The Associated Press

The items are big-ticket and small, laid out in football plays that cover regulations the senator says lead to unnecessary spending or actual spending he derides as wasteful.

His targets range from new, higher dishwasher efficiency standards that mandate so little water that food is left sticking to dishes, requiring another wash to be clean, to a $2.6 million weight-loss program for truck drivers funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The fumbles also take a whack at a $250 million Defense Department program to train and provide equipment to just 60 Syrian rebels (the goal, according to the report, was $500 million to train and equip at least 5,400 rebels fighting the Islamic State); $30,000 to secure the habitat of the American Burying Beetle and $8 million spent by a Veterans Affairs hospital in Little Rock, Ark., to tear down 1,400 inactive solar panels to make way for a new parking garage.

“Cited here are not only prime examples of wasteful spending, but also federal departments or agencies that regulate outside the scope of the federal government’s constitutional role,” Lankford wrote. “There is a way to eliminate wasteful, ineffective, or duplicative program spending; develop oversight methods to prevent future waste; and find ways to get us back on track.”

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