CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

New regulations from the past week cover everything from Namibian meat to California raisins.

On to the data:

• Last week, 70 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 50 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 24 minutes.
• With 1,929 final regulations published so far in 2016, the federal government is on pace to issue 3,546 regulations in 2016. Last year’s total was 3,406 regulations.
• Last week, 1,810 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,293 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 46,503 pages, the 2016 Federal Register is on pace for 85,484 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. 19 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 $3.82 billion to $6.02 billion.
• 144 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published this year.
• So far in 2016, 364 new rules affect small businesses; 54 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• Regional energy standards for air conditioners.
• Importing mangoes from India.
• The FDA is repealing some obsolete rules dating back to before 1972. More agencies should follow the FDA’s housecleaning example.
• The EPA is withdrawing usage regulations for three chemicals.
• Food facility registration requirements.
• Namibian farmers may now export meat to the United States.
• The Coast Guard has a manual for how to secure cargo.
• Raisins and grapes grown in California.

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