CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was another slow week, with only 57 new regulations; the usual number is closer to 70. Even so, agencies issued new rules for everything from how to shoe a horse to fees for avocado growers in south Florida. The Federal Register also broke the 3,000-page mark.
On to the data:
- Last week, 57 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. There were 38 new final rules the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 57 minutes.
- So far in 2014, 121 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 2,521 new regulations this year. This would be the lowest total in decades; this will likely change as the year goes on.
- Last week, 1,543 new pages were added to the Federal Register.
- Currently at 3,294 pages, the 2014 Federal Register is on pace for 68,625 pages, which would be the lowest total since 2001.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Four such rules have been published so far this year, two of them in the past week.
- The total estimated compliance costs of 2014’s economically significant regulations is currently $1.6 million. They affect several billion dollars of government spending.
- Twenty final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
- So far in 2014, 21 new rules affect small businesses. Six of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- There are federal regulations for how to shoe a horse. A new rule outlines minimum penalties for violating them.
- If you grow avocados in south Florida, the Agricultural Marketing Service has raised its cut from 25 cents to 30 cents per bushel. It also plans to spend $175,000 this year on avocado research, along with nearly $120,000 in salaries and another $51,500 in employee benefits.
- If you are planning on importing archaeological artifacts from Bulgaria, read this new regulation first.
- New safety standards for bedside sleepers.
- New guidelines for lobster harvesting in Hawaii.
- The TSA issued security rules for aircraft repair stations.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.