CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

This week in the world of regulation:

• Last week, 62 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. This is down from 66 new final rules the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 43 minutes — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• All in all, 1,163 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
• If this keeps up, the total tally for 2013 will be 3,451 new final rules.
• Last week, 1,250 new pages were added to the 2013 Federal Register, for a total of 26,190pages.
• At its current pace, the 2013 Federal Register will run 76,134 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. No such rules were published last week, for a total of 12 so far in 2013.
• The total estimated compliance costs of this year’s economically significant regulations ranges from $5.58 billion to $10.19 billion.
• So far, 85 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2013.
• So far this year, 216 final rules affect small business; 20 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• If you are contractor for the Energy Department, there is a new rule that affects your legal representation.
• Particulate matter standards for the Philadelphia-Wilmington area.
• New fishing regulations for spiny dogfish.
• The federal government has a longstanding policy of encouraging people to live in dangerously flood-prone areas by selling them flood insurance at below-market prices. Fortunately, they will cease selling such insurance in several areas.
• 18 new FAA regulations this week. 241 on the year.
• The federal government has a California Olive Committee. It has decreased its assessment rate on that state’s olive growers from $31.32 to $21.16 per ton.

For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.