CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
Just another week in the world of regulation:
- 84 new final rules were published last week, down from 71 the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation precisely every 2 hours — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- All in all, 2,144 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
- If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 4,024 new rules.
- 1,412 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 40,596 pages.
- At its current pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 75,178 pages.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 25 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $14.5 billion. Two of the rules do not have cost estimates, and a third cost estimate does not give a total annual cost. We assume that rules lacking this basic transparency measure cost the bare minimum of $100 million per year. The true cost is almost certainly higher.
- No economically significant rule was published last week.
- So far, 216 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2012.
- So far this year, 386 final rules affect small businesses. 59 of them are significant rules.
Highlights from final rules published last week:
- If you were planning on importing archaeological artifacts from Cyprus this week, we have some bad news for you. Import restrictions, due to expire today, have been extended.
- The FBI’s anti-piracy warning seal may now be pirated by any copyright holder, “subject to specific conditions of use.”
- The Chupadera springsnail is the unwitting recipient of 1.9 acres of critical habitat in Socorro County, New Mexico.
- Pilots and other flightcrew members are now required to report their working hours to the federal government.
For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com