CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation
This week in the world of regulation:
- The first full week of 2013 saw 52 new final regulations. This is up from 28 new final rules the previous, holiday-shortened week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation precisely every two hours and 8 minutes — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- All in all, 80 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
- If this keeps up, the total tally for 2013 will be 2,222 new final rules.
- Last week, 1,760 new pages were added to the 2013 Federal Register, for a total of 2,610 pages.
- At its current pace, the 2013 Federal Register will run 72,500 pages.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. One such rule has been published so far in 2013.
- So far, six final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2013.
- So far this year, 23 final rules affect small business; one of them is a significant rule.
Highlights from final rules published last week:
- Last week’s economically significant rule comes from the Federal Transit Administration. It sets standards for how the agency evaluates major transit projects that seeking federal funding. The rule’s estimated economic impact is $250 million. This estimate primarily affects how federal money is spent, and not the total level of government spending. The estimate also says little about compliance costs. As such, we are scoring this rule as zero-cost in our running compliance cost tally.
- The Federal Trade Commission is updating its labeling requirements for appliances’ energy use.
- The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has declared that Livingston and Steuben Counties in New York are both free of the golden nematode, a pest that affects potatoes and tomatoes. As such, the agency is loosening its nematode policies in those counties.
- The same agency is also moving towards a national ID for livestock. Given the resistance the REAL ID Act for humans has faced, the Department of Homeland Security must be jealous of APHIS’ success.
- The FAA issued 19 new final rules, including noise certification standards for tiltorotors.
For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.