CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

The federal government took Monday off to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. But even accounting for the short work week, it was another light week on the regulatory front.

  • Last week, 35 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. There were 56 new final rules the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 4 hours and 48 minutes.
  • So far in 2014, 362 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 2,586 new regulations this year. This would be the lowest total in decades; this will likely change as the year goes on.
  • Last week, 896 new pages were added to the Federal Register.
  • Currently at 9,975 pages, the 2014 Federal Register is on pace for 71,250 pages, which would be the lowest total since 2009.
  • Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Six such rules have been published so far this year, none of them in the past week.
  • The total estimated compliance costs of 2014’s economically significant regulations currently ranges from $614 million to $885 million. They also affect several billion dollars of government spending.
  • Thirty-nine final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
  • So far in 2014, 72 new rules affect small businesses; 12 of them are classified as significant.

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

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