CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
The Memorial Day-shortened work week still saw the Federal Register grow by 1,200 pages, with more than 60 new regulations published.
On to the data:
- Last week, 62 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. There were 66 new final rules the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 43 minutes.
- So far in 2014, 1,352 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,250 new regulations this year. This would be the lowest total in decades; this will likely change as the year goes on.
- Last week, 1,200 new pages were added to the Federal Register.
- Currently at 31,167 pages, the 2014 Federal Register is on pace for 74,921 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. Eighteen such rules have been published so far this year, one of them in the past week.
- The total estimated compliance costs of 2014’s economically significant regulations currently ranges from $1.82 billion to $2.19 billion. They also affect several billion dollars of government spending.
- One hundred and sixteen final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
- So far in 2014, 265 new rules affect small businesses; 39 of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- A new Affordable Care Act regulation is this week’s economically significant rule. Its estimated cost ranges from $48.78 to $49.52 million. The balance of the $100 million threshold for economic significance comes from estimated benefits.
- Many of the government’s procurement and contractor regulations have nothing to do with price or quality. For example, one new rule from the Defense Department, GSA, and NASA bases contractor decisions in part on executive pay.
- New energy conservation standards for electric motors.
- Since 1989, the U.S. military has had a Family Advocacy Command Assistance Team. A new regulation updates some of FACAT’s policies and procedures (this one is actually from a few weeks ago, but I just noticed it this week)
- New kiwifruit handling regulations. This is the 189th federal kiwifruit regulation to appear since 1994. Read them all here.
- New grading requirements for Valencia oranges.
- If you’ve ever wanted to hunt for double-crested cormorants, now’s your chance.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.