New RegData Site Makes it Easier to Track Regulation

About three years ago, our friends at the Mercatus Center launched a website called RegData that compiles a searchable database on many facets of regulations. For the first time, it also quantified just how many regulatory restrictions are in the 175,000-page Code of Federal Regulations. By doing text searches for terms such as “must,” “shall,” “shall not,” and the like, they found that, as of 2010, there have been more than one million regulatory restrictions. Ten Thousand Commandments turns out to be an understatement, by a factor of one hundred.

This week a major RegData revamp was released, with more data that is more searchable than before. Head on over and play with the search tools for a bit and see what you’ll find. There is also a short instructional video where Patrick McLaughlin walks you through the site.