It’s about time. That somebody called out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that is. As the Washington Examiner’s Richard Pollock reported Friday, the Federal Reserve‘s inspector general has opened an investigation into why what started out as a $55 million renovation of the new bureau’s central headquarters has ballooned to $145 million in less than two years. The investigation was requested by Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, following a heated Jan. 28 hearing in which CFPB Director Richard Cordray refused to provide details about the project requested by McHenry’s panel.

Federal construction projects going over budget isn’t big news, but when it happens at the CFPB, it’s bound to attract some attention. The reason is, the CFPB is as close to an unaccountable federal agency as President Obama and his Democratic congressional buddies dared to make it in 2010 (they were helped by a handful of Republicans). Since the CFPB was created as an agency of the Federal Reserve, Congress has no control over the bureau’s budget, and its oversight authority is essentially token. Once the Senate confirms a CFPB director, Congress is all but cut out from having any say over the bureau’s operation, including the thousands of regulations it is preparing to unleash on the American people.