This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

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As the new administration settles in, it appears they will continue many Trump administration policies, such as “Buy American” provisions and trade protectionism. Meanwhile, agencies issued new rules ranging from security bars to aluminum imports.

On to the data:

  • Agencies issued 23 final regulations last week, after 46 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every seven hours and 18 minutes.
  • With 235 final regulations so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 3,264 final regulations this year. 2020’s total was 3,353 final regulations.
  • Agencies issued 2 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 27 the previous week.
  • With 113 proposed regulations so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 1,569 proposed regulations this year. 2020’s total was 2,149 proposed regulations.
  • Agencies published 312 notices last week, after 312 notices the previous week.
  • With 1,692 notices so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 23,500 notices this year. 2020’s total was 22,480.
  • Last week, 789 new pages were added to the Federal Register in a three-day week, after 1,949 pages the previous week.
  • With 7,614 pages so far, the 2021 Federal Register is on pace for 105,750 pages in 2021—again, this number will likely go down as the year goes on. The 2020 total was 87,352 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (subtracting 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. There are two such rules so far in 2021. Agencies published five economically significant rules in 2020, and four in 2019.
  • The running cost tally for 2021’s economically significant rules ranges from net savings of $100.7 million to net costs of $362.5 million. The 2020 figure ranges from net savings of between $2.04 billion and $5.69 billion, mostly from estimated savings on federal spending. The exact numbers depend on discount rates and other assumptions.
  • Agencies have published seven final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” in 2020, none in the last week. This is on pace for 97 significant rules in 2021. 2020’s total was 79 significant final rules.
  • In 2021, 13 new rules affect small businesses. Two are classified as significant. 2020’s totals were 668 rules affecting small businesses, 26 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new regulations:

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