This Week in Ridiculous Regulations   

Congress returned from recess, the Democratic presidential candidates had a debate, and the 2019 federal deficit topped $1 trillion with a month left to go in the federal fiscal year. Meanwhile, rulemaking agencies published new regulations ranging from Kaspersky Lab services to Foskett speckled dace.

On to the data:

• Last week, 88 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 51 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every one hour and 55 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 2,079 final regulations in 2019. At that pace, there will be 2,920 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,367 regulations.
• Last week, agencies published 413 notices, for a total of 15,205 in 2019. At that pace, there will be 21,356 new notices this year. Last year’s total was 21,656.
• Last week, 1,431 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,240 pages the previous week.
• The 2019 Federal Register totals 48,545 pages. It is on pace for 68,125 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. Four such rules have been published this year. Six such rules were published in 2018.
• The running cost tally for 2019’s economically significant regulations currently ranges from savings of $4.30 billion to $4.44 billion, mostly from estimated savings on federal spending. The 2018 total ranges from net costs of $220.1 million to $2.54 billion, depending on discount rates and other assumptions.
• Agencies have published 47 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year. 2018’s total was 108 significant final rules.
• So far in 2019, 352 new rules affect small businesses; 15 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:

• On Wednesday, the Coast Guard published a rule establishing a safety zone for Hurricane Dorian in Maryland and the capital region.
• A new defense procurement agreement with Australia.
• A Small Entity Compliance Guide for certain federal contractors.
• “The United States Department of Agriculture is announcing the completion of certain interim rules that published in the Federal Register more than 3 years ago.”
• Rules for the use of products and services of Kaspersky Lab.
• Cuban assets control regulations.
• Wireless spectrum above 24GHz for mobile radio.
• Northern red hake possession limit.
• The Coast Guard has established 52 safety zones in the Cape Fear River since 1994, most recently on Thursday. See them all here.
• More hour regulations for truckers.
• More steps to turn state driver’s licenses into national ID cards under the REAL ID Act.
• The Foskett speckled dace is no longer an endangered species.

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