CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

Just another week in the world of regulation:

  •  64 new final rules were published last week, down from 89 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 38 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 653 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,464 new rules.
  •  1,490 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 14,451 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 76,867 pages.
  •  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 this basic transparency measure cost the bare minimum of $100 million per year. The true cost is almost certainly higher.
  •  There were 10 significant actions this week, as defined by Executive Order 12866. For the second week in a row, none of them are “economically significant” final rules, meaning a cost $100 million or more per year. So far, 88 significant final rules have been published in 2012.
  •  So far this year, 110 final rules affect small businesses. 19 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published this week:

  •  The Fish and Wildlife Service issued a rule to “recognize the recent change to the taxonomy of the currently endangered plant taxon, Monardella linoides ssp. viminea, in which the subspecies was split into two distinct full species, Monardella viminea (willowy monardella) and Monardella stoneana (Jennifer’s monardella).” M. viminea will retain its endangered status; M. stoneana is not considered to be endangered. They are herbs that grow in the San Diego area.
  •  The FDA made some mistakes in a recent rule involving new drugs for use in animal feeds. They issued a correction on Friday.
  •  The FCC is busy crafting a “National Broadband Plan for Our Future.” One wonders how its results will compare to its intentions.

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