CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• 89 new final rules were published last week, compared to 68 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every one hour and 53 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 589 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,477 new rules.
• 1,594 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 12,961 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 77,149 pages.
• There were 17 significant actions this week, as defined by Executive Order 12866. Of those, none are “economically significant” final rules, meaning a cost $100 million or more per year. So far, 85 significant rules have been published in 2012.
• So far this year, 100 final rules affect small businesses. 19 of them are significant rules.
• The 9 economically significant rules published so far in 2012 cost at least $15.01 billion. Two of the rules do not have cost estimates. We assume that rules lacking basic transparency measure cost the bare minimum of $100 million per year. The true cost is almost certainly higher.

Here are highlights from final rules that passed this week:

• The Agricultural Marketing Service published a proposed rule under which it would like to pay for advertising and promoting beef. Corporate welfare: it’s what’s for dinner.
• The Defense Department, General Services Administration, and NASA jointly issued five separate rules on Friday about acquisition and dealing with contractors. Read them here, here, here, here, and here.
• The FAA issued new security regulations for airplane bathrooms.

For more data, updated daily, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.