CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

As 2014 draws to a close, regulators had themselves a busy week with 50 proposed regulations, more than 2,000 Federal Register pages, and 69 new final regulations covering everything from washing machines to plants for planting.

On to the data:

• Last week, 69 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. There were 63 new final rules the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 26 minutes.
• So far in 2014, 3,446 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,545 new regulations this year.
• Last week, 2,211 new pages were added to the Federal Register.
• Currently at 76,025 pages, the 2014 Federal Register is on pace for 78,207 pages. This would be the 6^th-largest page count since the Federal Register began publication in 1936.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 44 such rules have been published so far this year, none in the past week.
• The total estimated compliance costs of 2014’s economically significant regulations currently ranges from $6.48 billion to $9.95 billion. They also affect several billion dollars of government spending.
• 279 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2014, 649 new rules affect small businesses; 98 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• New vehicle inspection regulations for commercial drivers will save an estimated $1.7 billion per year by removing redundant rules and procedures, and reducing paperwork burdens.
• A new rule on federal rewards affects 33 agencies.
• Interesting wording with this one: “The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (‘FDIC’) is adopting a final rule to rescind and remove regulations entitled ‘Loans in Areas Having Flood Hazards’ and to amend regulations entitled ‘Loans in Areas Having Flood Hazards.’”
• The Personnel Management Office is electing to “discontinue the annual determination of the Medically Underserved Areas (MUAs) for the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program.”
• Porbeagle shark fishing season is officially over.
• New regulation for the Importation of Plants for Planting.
• Energy conservation standards for commercial washing machines.
• A $10.10 hourly minimum wage is on the way for contractors working for the Defense Department, General Services Administration, and NASA.

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