This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

It was a short work week because of Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, agencies issued new rules ranging from blood lancets to crash test dummies.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 59 final regulations last week, after 63 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 51 minutes.
• With 2,924 final regulations so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 3,138 final regulations this year. 2020’s total was 3,218 final regulations.
• Agencies issued 47 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 41 the previous week.
• With 1,898 proposed regulations so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 2,109 proposed regulations this year. 2020’s total was 2,222 proposed regulations.
• Agencies published 399 notices last week, after 391 notices the previous week.
• With 20,124 notices so far in 2021, agencies are on pace to issue 22,360 notices this year. 2020’s total was 22,480.
• Last week, 1,496 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 3,225 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue this year contains 299 pages.
• With 67,647 pages so far, the 2021 Federal Register is on pace for 75,163 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 24 such rules so far in 2021, three 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 $8.83 billion to $13.72 billion. 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 335 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” in 2021, with four in the last week. This is on pace for 372 significant rules in 2021. 2020’s total was 79 significant final rules.
• In 2021, 810 new rules affect small businesses; 85 are classified as significant. 2020’s totals were 668 rules affecting small businesses, 26 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new regulations:

• A $15 hourly minimum wage for all federal contractors, at a cost of $1.75 billion per year.
• Energy conservation standards for direct heating equipment.
• Technical corrections to 18 endangered species designations.
• Notification requirements for banking incidents.
• Classification of the general laparoscopic power morcellation containment system.
• Royalty rates for public broadcasters.
• And for satellite broadcasters.
• Geometric altitude controls for drones.
• Archaeological artifacts from Greece.
• New premarket approval requirements for blood lancets.
• Specifications for crash test dummies intended to simulate three-year-olds.

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