CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• Last week, 71 new final rules were published, down from 82 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 22 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• All in all, 2,861 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
• If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,850 new rules.
• Last week, 968 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last, for a total of 59,616 pages.
• At its current pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 78,858 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 39 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $17.4 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, 285 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2012.
• So far this year, 547 final rules affect small business; 78 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• If you buy your prune insurance from the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, you should be aware of upcoming changes to your policy.
• Practice makes perfect — especially if you follow the Federal Trade Commission’s new Rules of Practice that were published on Thursday.
• Several new defense acquisitions regulations were published last week, mainly intended to prevent fraud, overcharging, and low quality.
• Remember the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement? U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Treasury Department have teamed up to pass an interim rule implementing its tariff reductions.

For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.