CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

Things sped up last week after 2016’s slow start. The Energy Department issued the year’s first two economically significant regulations, and other new regulations cover everything from responsible people to injurious slamanders.

On to the data:

  • Last week, 70 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 32 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 24 minutes.
  • With 102 final regulations published so far in 2016, the federal government is on pace to issue 2,550 regulations in 2016.
  • Last week, 1,607 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,113 pages the previous week.
  • Currently at 2,720 pages, the 2016 Federal Register is on pace for exactly 68,000 pages.
  • Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Two such rules have been published so far in 2016.
  • The running compliance cost tally for 2016’s economically significant regulations ranges from $321 million to $1.118 billion.
  • 13 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published this year.
  • So far in 2016, 25 new rules affect small businesses; 5 of them is classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

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