CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

As the number of new regulations in 2016 threatens the 1,000 mark, new rules cover everything from rural broadband to flatfish.

On to the data:

  • Last week, 61 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 87 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every one hour and 45 minutes.
  • With 948 final regulations published so far in 2016, the federal government is on pace to issue 3,247 regulations in 2016. Last year’s total was 3,406 regulations.
  • Last week, 1,284 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,201 pages the previous week.
  • Currently at 22,472 pages, the 2016 Federal Register is on pace for 76,959 pages. The 2015 Federal Register had an adjusted page count of 81,611.
  • Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Seven such rules have been published so far in 2016, none in the last week.
  • The running compliance cost tally for 2016’s economically significant regulations ranges from $629 million to $1.46 billion.
  • 78 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published this year.
  • So far in 2016, 189 new rules affect small businesses; 27 of them are 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.