CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation
Agencies last week proposed 51 new regulations, and finalized 77 other rules covering everything from aluminum to Peruvian citrus.
On to the data:
- Last week, 77 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 48 the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 11 minutes.
- So far in 2015, 2,383 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,291 new regulations this year, which would be more than 200 fewer rules than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
- Last week, 1,876 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,322 pages the previous week.
- Currently at 56,887 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 78,574 pages.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year; 21 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 $1.69 billion to $1.81 billion for the current year.
- 204 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
- So far in 2015, 392 new rules affect small businesses; 56 of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- An economically significant regulation for animal food. Its total estimated annualized cost ranges from $135.6 million to $170.7 million.
- The week’s other economically significant rule is from the Veterans Affairs Department, concerning medication copayments. Since the rule is not exactly forthcoming with cost analysis, I am scoring it as costing the bare minimum $100 million necessary for the rule to qualify as economically significant.
- The Defense Department provides child care services for some of its employees. Care providers must pass background checks.
- New U.S. Customs rule for intellectual property.
- Fresh off its masterful handling of pollution in the Colorado River, the EPA is setting its sights on ocean dumping in southeastern Texas.
- Secondary aluminum production.
- New Zealand might be the world leader in kiwi fruit production, but new regulations allow Chilean kiwi fruit growers to export to the United States.
- The U.S. Postal Service maintains its own courts and judges. Here are their rules of practice lawyers must follow.
- Courtesy of the FDA, “Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food.”
- Importing citrus from Peru.
- Fresh peppers, too.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.