This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

CEI published its new Agenda for Congress. We also held a launch event featuring Sen. Rand Paul. Meanwhile, the 2021 Federal Register surpassed 15,000 pages. Agencies issued new rules ranging from sablefish season to airplane airbags.

On to the data:

  • Agencies issued 45 final regulations last week, after 83 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every three hours and 44 minutes.
  • With 687 final regulations so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 3,279 final regulations this year. 2020’s total was 3,327 final regulations.
  • Agencies issued 39 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 63 the previous week.
  • With 419 proposed regulations so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 2,014 proposed regulations this year. 2020’s total was 2,021 proposed regulations.
  • Agencies published 436 notices last week, after 432 notices the previous week.
  • With 4,693 notices so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 22,563 notices this year. 2020’s total was 22,480.
  • Last week, 844 new pages were added to the Federal Register in a three-day week, after 1,069 pages the previous week.
  • The average Federal Register issue this year contains 290 pages.
  • With 15,067 pages so far, the 2021 Federal Register is on pace for 72,438 pages in 2021. 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, none from the last week. 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 12 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” in 2020, with two in the last week. This is on pace for 58 significant rules in 2021. 2020’s total was 79 significant final rules.
  • In 2021, 116 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.