This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

CEI published a new paper on right-to-repair legislation and held a hill briefing about regulatory reform and other topics. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from spacecraft splashdowns to extending patents.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 71 final regulations last week, after 53 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 22 minutes.
• With 502 final regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 2,988 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 45 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 34 the previous week.
• With 359 proposed regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 2,137 proposed regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 2,044 new proposed regulations in 2022, and 2,094 in 2021.
• Agencies published 419 notices last week, after 334 notices the previous week.
• With 3,688 notices so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 21,952 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 1,669 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue in 2023 contains 325 pages.
• With 13,654 pages so far, the 2023 Federal Register is on pace for 81,274 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, none in the last week.
• This is on pace for 36 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 eight regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” last week, after 11 the previous week.
• So far this year, there are 46 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant.” This is on pace for 274 significant regulations in 2023.
• For comparison, there were 255 such new regulations in 2022, and 387 in 2021.
• So far in 2023, 122 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 726. Twelve of them are significant, on pace for 71.
• 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:

• The freckle-bellied madtom is now a threatened species with 134 river miles of critical habitat.
• Electronic filing for patent extension applications.
• Prostrate milkweed is now an endangered species with 661 acres of critical habitat.
• Venezuelan sanctions.
• Russian sanctions.
• The Indian Affairs Bureau is inflation-adjusting its civil penalties.
• Student loan repayment for veterans.
• Electrical coverage ratios for rural areas.
• Religious exemptions in government contracts.
• Credit union cyber incident notification requirements.
• Schempp-Hirth Flugzeugbau gliders.
• Disclosure requirements for government contractors who work in China.
• Prompt payment for government contractors.
• Ethical conduct standards for Defense Department employees.
• Electric vehicle infrastructure.
• Wage rules for H-2A visa workers.
• Export controls regarding Iranian drones used by Russia against Ukraine.
• International arms trafficking.
• Privacy regulations from NASA.
• Movable flight attendant seats.
• Safety zones around splashdown sites for returning SpaceX spacecraft.

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