CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
This week in the world of regulation:
- Last week, 77 new final rules were published, up from 71 the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 11 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- All in all, 3,135 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
- If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,825 new rules.
- Last week, 1,043 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register, for a total of 64,313 pages.
- At its current pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 78,553 pages.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 41 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $23.9 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, 304 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2012.
- So far this year, 588 final rules affect small business; 85 of them are significant rules.
Highlights from final rules published last week:
- The EPA was busy last week, publishing 19 new final rules. They are listed here.
- The FAA was also busy, publishing 15 new final rules.
- The FCC is going to take a careful look at your phone bill for unauthorized charges, a practice known as cramming.
- The FDA is amending its animal drug regulations.
- Good news for our friends in Taiwan: starting November 1, Taiwan residents can visit the U.S. for up to 90 days without a visa.
- The Foreign Assets Control Office is amending its Iranian transactions regulations.
For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.