CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Even in a shortened work week due to Martin Luther King Day, federal agencies still put out 40 final regulations and more than 50 proposed regulations, covering everything from pet stores to drywall.
On to the data:
- Last week, 40 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, the same number as the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every four hours and 12 minutes.
- So far in 2015, 118 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 1,967 new regulations this year, which would be far less than the usual total.
- Last week, 1,271 new pages were added to the Federal Register.
- Currently at 3,857 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 64,284 pages, which would be the lowest page count since 1992.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. One such rule has been published so far this year, none in the past week.
- The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations is $477 million for the current year.
- Twelve final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
- So far in 2015, 21 new rules affect small businesses; four of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a technical amendment to its licensing regulations for pet stores.
- In 2012, Congress passed the Drywall Safety Act. On Friday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission codified the ASTM C1396-14a standard for drywall.
- The Agricultural Marketing Service is lowering its assessment rate on grapefruit grown in Texas’ lower Rio Grande Valley.
- It is also relaxing its potato-handling regulations in certain parts of Colorado.
- New regulations for arresting, detaining, charging, and questioning journalists.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.