Ten Thousand Commandments

The 2011 edition of Wayne Crews’ “Ten Thousand Commandments” was released today. The annual study gives a big-picture view of the regulatory state. You can read it here. Some of the main findings:

• Federal regulations cost $1.75 trillion per year. That’s equivalent to about half of federal spending. Government’s cost is actually about 50 percent bigger than most people think.
• Agencies issued 3,752 final rules in 2010. At that pace, a new rule comes into effect every two hours or so.
• Another 4,225 rules are in the pipeline right now.
• The Federal Register hit an all-time high 81,405 pages in 2010.
• Economically significant regulations are way up. These are defined as rules that have over $100 million of economic impact. There were 224 in 2010. That’s a 22 percent increase over 2009’s 184.

Wayne and other CEI scholars will have a lot more to say about regulations and how to reform them in the coming weeks; keep an ear out.