CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

As the 2015 Federal Register topped 50,000 pages, federal agencies issued new regulations for everything from bicycles to tuna.

On to the data:

• Last week, 73 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 76 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 18 minutes.
• So far in 2015, 2,178 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,260 new regulations this year, which would be more than 200 fewer rules than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
• Last week, 1,261 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,993 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 50,334 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 75,351 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Nineteen 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 $1.32 billion to $1.41 billion for the current year.
• 181 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2015, 367 new rules affect small businesses; 53 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• New energy conservation tests for external power supplies. Does this mean more electronic devices will use internal power supplies going forward?
• 16 new regulations from the FAA. See them all here.
• 11 new regulations from the EPA. See them all here.
• In Wilmington, North Carolina, there is a drawbridge crossing the Northeast Cape Fear River. Federal regulations determine when it goes up and down.
• Some changes to the default retirement investment fund for federal employees.
• Quotas for tuna fishing.
• New federal rules for riding bicycles in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.