CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

The Federal Register passed the 20,000-page mark in a big way, with Thursday and Friday’s editions alone accounting for more 1,200 pages. New regulations cover everything from macadamia insurance to net neutrality.

On to the data:

• Last week, 57 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 39 new regulations the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 57 minutes.
• So far in 2015, 850 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 2,872 new regulations this year, which would be several hundred fewer rules than the usual total.
• Last week, 2,127 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,120 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 21,533 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 72,747 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they are estimated to have annual costs of $100 million or more. Six such rules have been published so far this year, none in the past week.
• The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations ranges from $693 million to $746 million for the current year.
• 73 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2015, 159 new rules affect small businesses, while 25 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• The Social Security Administration is revising its criteria for evaluating hematological disorders and growth disorders and weight loss.
• The IRS issued a correction to a recent rule intended to make it easier for non-profit organizations to apply for 501(c)3 tax-exempt status. (No word on whether this will apply to all groups, or only those with political views in line with whichever party is currently in power.)
• Fossil preservation regulations for government-owned forests.
• The federal government sells macadamia tree insurance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation just issued a revision to the program.
• If you want to renovate an old building that has lead paint, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires you to take a certification course, as well as periodic recertification courses.
• 15 new EPA regulations for the week, in total.
• The Coast Guard issued four regulations determining when certain drawbridges go up and down in Oregon, Maine, and Louisiana.
• The Federal Communications Commission published its 114-page net neutrality rule.

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