CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• 81 new final rules were published last week, down from 84 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation precisely every 2 hours and 4 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• All in all, 2,127 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
• If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,854 new rules.
• 1,283 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 42,879 pages.
• At its current pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 75,570 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 rules were published last week.
• So far, 224 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2012.
• So far this year, 402 final rules affect small businesses; 59 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• Despite no proof of harm, the FDA is banning the use of BPA in plastic feeding bottles and sippy cups. CEI’s Angela Logomasini has written on this issue before.
• As directed by the health care bill, HHS is ramping up its data collection on what benefits different insurers offer.
• If you are planning on fishing for Pacific Ocean Perch in the West Yakutat District of the Gulf of Alaska (who isn’t?), you should read this new regulation.
• Just in time for the Olympics, the federal government is establishing relay services for deaf-blind individuals.

For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.