This Week in Ridiculous Regulations   

The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and sustained heavy damage. The rebuilding will likely take years, though people began politicizing it almost instantly. In other news, the Mueller report was publicly released on Thursday. Cable news networks on both sides of the partisan divide, in a show of unity, have reportedly agreed to report on nothing else for the remainder of 2019. Meanwhile, rulemaking agencies issued new regulations from synthetic cannibinoids to grapefruit grading.

On to the data:

• Last week, 66 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, same as the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 33 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 769 final regulations in 2019. At that pace, there will be 2,530 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,367 regulations.
• Last week, agencies published 487 notices, for a total of 6,245 in 2019. At that pace, there will be 20,543 new notices this year. Last year’s total was 22,205.
• Last week, 1,516 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,286 pages the previous week.
• The 2019 Federal Register totals 16,600 pages. It is on pace for 54,606 pages. The 2018 total was 68,082 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (which subtracts skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set in 2016.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. One such rule has been published this year. Six such rules were published in 2018.
• The running compliance cost tally for 2019’s economically significant regulations currently ranges from $139.1 million to $175.8 million. The 2018 total ranges from $220.1 million to $2.54 billion, depending on discount rates and other assumptions.
• Agencies have published 25 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year. 2018’s total was 108 significant final rules.
• So far in 2019, 142 new rules affect small businesses; 10 of them are classified as significant. 2018’s totals were 660 rules affecting small businesses, with 29 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new final regulations:

• A correction to the Defense Department’s privacy program.
• Size and grading requirements for Florida-grown grapefruit, tangerines, and pommelo.
• A new rule for the Federal Plan for Existing Sewage Sludge Incineration Units.
• The federal government has a Commission of Fine Arts. It has a new regulation for its Freedom of Information Act requirements.
• More synthetic cannibanoids classified as Schedule I controlled substances, the same as heroin.
• The Transportation Department is cleaning out some obsolete aviation regulations.
• The Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whale is now an endangered species. Note that “Bryde’s” is pronounced “broodus.”
• Trains are no longer required to display a badge stating their compliance with noise regulations.
• Processed vegetable grades.

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