CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

The first full week of 2014 was a light one, despite more than 1,500 Federal Register pages. The number of new regulations was about half the usual number, and none of them meet the $100 million per year “economically significant” threshold.

On to the data:

  • Last week, 38 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register. There were 66 new final rules the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every four hours and 25 minutes.
  • So far in 2014, 64 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 2,286 new regulations this year. This would be the lowest total in decades; this will likely change as the year goes on.
  • Last week, 1,543 new pages were added to the Federal Register. It is on pace for 73,929 pages, which would be the lowest total since 2009.
  • Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Two such rules have been published so far this year, none of them in the past week.
  • The total estimated compliance costs of 2014’s economically significant regulations is currently zero. They affect nearly $20 billion of government spending, but their impact estimates mostly avoid discussion of compliance costs, so I am scoring them as zero-cost for purposes of this tally.
  • Fifteen final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
  • So far in 2014, 14 new rules affect small businesses. Two of them are classified as significant.

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

  • The Personnel Management Office is making changes to life insurance and health benefits for federal employees.
  • The FAA had a busy week, with nine new rules. See them all here.
  • The EPA also issued nine new rules. Most of them are air quality rules for various states, along with a rule for pesticides. See them all here.
  • The SEC updated the job description for its General Counsel.
  • The Cape Sable thoroughwort, a small plant native to Florida, is the unwitting recipient of nearly 11,000 acres of critical habitat in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties.

For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.