This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

Last Friday marked the one-year anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. CEI released a new paper on the FTC’s upcoming merger guideline revisions. It also came to light that the FTC colluded with European regulators to scuttle a merger between health care companies Illumina and Grail, potentially keeping a life-saving cancer detection test off the market. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from coal trespasses to turbofan engines.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 39 final regulations last week, after 59 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every four hours and 18 minutes.
• With 431 final regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 2,912 final regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 3,168 new final regulations in 2022, and 3,257 new final regulations in 2021.
• Agencies issued 34 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 34 the previous week.
• With 314 proposed regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 2,122 proposed regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 2,044 new proposed regulations in 2022, and 2,094 in 2021.
• Agencies published 334 notices last week, after 448 notices the previous week.
• With 3,249 notices so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 21,953 notices this year.
• For comparison, there were 22,505 notices in 2022, and 20,018 in 2021.
• Last week, 1,669 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,355 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue in 2023 contains 317 pages.
• With 12,131 pages so far, the 2023 Federal Register is on pace for 81,966 pages.
• For comparison, the 2022 Federal Register totals 80,756 pages, and 2021’s is 74,352 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (subtracting skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set in 2016.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. There are six such rules so far in 2023, one in the last week.
• This is on pace for 41 economically significant regulations in 2023.
• For comparison, there were 43 economically significant rules in 2022, and 26 in 2021.
• The total estimated cost of 2023’s economically significant regulations so far ranges from $55.49 billion to $78.41 billion, according to numbers provided by the agencies themselves.
• For comparison, the running cost tally for 2022’s economically significant rules ranges from net costs of $45.28 billion to $78.05 billion. In 2021 net costs ranged from $13.54 billion to $19.36 billion. The exact numbers depend on discount rates and other assumptions.
• There were 11 regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” last week, after two the previous week.
• So far this year, there are 38 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant.” This is on pace for 257 significant regulations in 2023.
• For comparison, there were 255 such new regulations in 2022, and 387 in 2021.
• So far in 2023, 102 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 689. Eleven of them are significant, on pace for 74.
• For comparison, in 2022 there were 912 rules affecting small businesses, 70 of them significant. 2021’s totals were 912 rules affecting small businesses, 101 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new regulations:

• Pollution from miscellaneous coatings.
• Reimbursing veterans for emergency treatment at non-VA hospitals.
• New Rural Utilities Service regulations required by the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018.
• Canned meat alignment.
• Formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products.
• Standards for non-research bird breeding.
• Prior approval for new financial products from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• Canadian turbofan engines.
• Recordkeeping requirements for swaps.
• Sanctions against Nicaragua.
• Sanctions against Global Magnitsky.
• Inflation-adjusted penalties for coal trespasses.
• Importing archaeological artifacts from Belize.
• Emissions standards for lead acid battery manufacturers.
• The FAA’s Airport Safety Management System.
• The EPA made one full deletion and one partial deletion from its Superfund National Priorities List.
  
  

The size of For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.