CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

The big news from last week was the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell decision, which upheld the IRS’ right to issue regulations directly contradicting legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president. But other agencies also issued more than 60 new regulations covering everything from cotton farmers’ conduct to infant formula.

On to the data:

• Last week, 64 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 81 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 38 minutes.
• So far in 2015, 1,511 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,071 new regulations this year, which would be several hundred fewer rules than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
• Last week, 1,343 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,542 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 36,780 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 74,757 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Thirteen such rules have been published so far this year, two in the past week.
• The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations ranges from $1.50 billion to $1.57 billion for the current year.
• 125 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2015, 261 new rules affect small businesses; 37 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• New electronic stability control systems for heavy vehicles, courtesy of this new 62-page regulation, will cost an estimated $113.6 million.
• Anti-vaxxers must have good lobbyists, because the federal government is expanding its vaccine injury compensation program.
• If you live in a rural area and make renewable biofuels, you might be eligible for a share of $50 million in government subsidies this year and next.
• Now that it’s 2015, the Agricultural Marketing Service is allowing farmers to submit more of their forms electronically.
• The federal government has a Cotton Research and Promotion Board—which even has its own hall of fame. If you want to join the program, here are new rules of conduct you must follow during the sign-up period.
• New selenium regulations for infant formula.

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