The Federal Register Is about to Top 70,000 Pages — And it’s Not Even December

This morning, the Federal Register stood at 68,980 pages. It’s the daily depository of all federal regulations proposed and final. It is our unfortunate Principia Regulatica.

Next week, the Register is quite likely to surpass 70,000 pages. It’s not even December yet.

At year-end 2012, the Federal Register topped out at 78,961. That wasn’t quite a record, it was the fourth-highest page count ever. The two years before that, the Register broke 81,000 pages, which were the highest levels ever.

All but one of the four highest years have occurred under President Barack Obama. It’s just mid-November, so we could have another record, or at least near-record, year in 2013.

You can see a rundown of historical Federal Register page counts here, if you dare.