CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
It was a short work week due to the 4th of July holiday, but a busy one. Monday’s Federal Register topped 500 pages, and Tuesday alone saw 29 new final regulations.
On to the data:
- Last week, 79 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. There were 86 new final rules the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 8 minutes.
- So far in 2014, 1,749 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,416 new regulations this year. This would be the lowest total in decades; this will likely change as the year goes on.
- Last week, 1,617 new pages were added to the Federal Register.
- Currently at 38,201 pages, the 2014 Federal Register is on pace for 74,612 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. Twenty-one 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 $3.96 billion to $4.38 billion. They also affect several billion dollars of government spending.
- One-hundred and forty-five final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
- So far in 2014, 321 new rules affect small businesses; 48 of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- New grading requirements for grapefruit.
- New handling regulations for pistachios.
- The Energy Department is instituting new test procedures and energy conservation standards for residential furnace fans.
- Sixteen new regulations from the Coast Guard; read them all here.
- Scalloped hammerhead sharks are now an endangered species.
- The wood stork is now a threatened species.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.