This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Federal regulators enjoyed a short work week due to Columbus Day, but still published more than 1,300 Federal Register pages with new regulations ranging from hobbies to people who live in apartments.
On to the data:
- Last week, 53 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 69 the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every three hours and 10 minutes.
- With 2,970 final regulations published so far in 2016, the federal government is on pace to issue 3,731 regulations in 2016. Last year’s total was 3,406 regulations.
- Last week, 1,324 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,096 pages the previous week.
- Currently at 71,103 pages, the 2016 Federal Register is on pace for 89,326 pages. This would exceed the 2010 Federal Register’s all-time record adjusted page count of 81,405.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 26 such rules have been published so far in 2016, one in the last week.
- The running compliance cost tally for 2016’s economically significant regulations ranges from $4.52 billion to $6.72 billion.
- 228 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published this year.
- So far in 2016, 514 new rules affect small businesses; 89 of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- The white-haired goldenrod is no longer an endangered species.
- “Procedures for the Handling of Retaliation Complaints Under Section 1558 of the Affordable Care Act.”
- A correction to a recent regulation for portable air conditioners.
- The federal government has a Farm Credit Administration. Here are some recent policy statements from its board.
- A new rule related to the Hobby Protection Act.
- Gas lines for multi-family homes.
- Most regulations are only reviewed before they come into effect, meaning agencies have no real-world data to work with when they estimate costs or benefits. Kudos to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, then, for taking the time to review one if its already-existing regulations regarding health care for people who live in apartments.
- Commercial driver’s licenses for former military employees.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.