CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

Last week’s Federal Register fell short of 2,000 pages, mainly because it was a four-day work week due the Memorial Day holiday. While the Federal Register continues its record pace, there were no economically significant rules last week (costing $100 million-plus per year), after four the previous week. It’s still too early to tell if the Congressional Review Act-related midnight rush was real or not, but early indications are that it may be. New rules from the last week range from portable air conditioning to the Death Master File.

On to the data:

  • Last week, 61 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 70 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 46 minutes.
  • With 1,405 final regulations published so far in 2016, the federal government is on pace to issue 3,283 regulations in 2016. Last year’s total was 3,406 regulations.
  • Last week, 1,895 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,013 pages the previous week.
  • Currently at 36,084 pages, the 2016 Federal Register is on pace for 84,309 pages. This would exceed the 2015 Federal Register’s all-time record adjusted page count of 81,611.
  • Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 15 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 $3.59 billion to $5.43 billion.
  • 120 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published this year.
  • So far in 2016, 270 new rules affect small businesses; 45 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.