CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

Last week’s raft of new rules covers everything from school lunch workers to Flugzeugbau gliders.

On to the data:

• Last week, 65 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 two hours and 35 minutes.
• So far in 2015, 1,065 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 2,992 new regulations this year, which would be several hundred fewer rules than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
• Last week, 1,609 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,975 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 26,706 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 74,694 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Eight such rules have been published so far this year, one in the past week.
• The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations ranges from $917 million to $970 million for the current year.
• Ninety final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2015, 189 new rules affect small businesses; 30 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• A new regulation for construction in confined spaces will cost about $60 million per year. OSHA deserves some kudos for being transparent enough to report its cost estimate even though it wasn’t required to in this case.
• A 108-page economically significant rule for train cars carrying flammable substances. The cost estimate is $2.482 billion over twenty years, which averages out to $124.1 million annually.
• New EPA regulations for using 25 chemicals.
• The Fish and Wildlife Service is relocating from Arlington, Virginia to the next-door Falls Church.
• New federal standards for school lunch workers.
• Another greenhouse gas regulation from the EPA.
• The federal government has a National Organic Program. After a recent review, the program will continue.
• The federal government also has a Boating Infrastructure Grant Program.
• Flugzeugbau gliders.
• Powered exoskeleton regulations.

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