This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

The unemployment rate held steady at 3.6 percent. The K-Pop group BTS made an official visit to the White House. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from fragile packages to tuna.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 62 final regulations last week, after 66 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 42 minutes.
• With 1,335 final regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 3,119 final regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 3,257 new final regulations in 2021, President Biden’s first year, and 3,218 in 2020, President Trump’s final year.
• Agencies issued 40 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 40 the previous week.
• With 908 proposed regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 2,121 proposed regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 2,094 new proposed regulations in 2021 and 2,094 in 2020.
• Agencies published 377 notices last week, after 449 notices the previous week.
• With 9,602 notices so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 22,435 notices this year.
• For comparison, there were 20,018 notices in 2021. 2020’s total was 22,458.
• Last week, 1,775 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,196 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue in 2022 contains 318 pages.
• With 34,066 pages so far, the 2022 Federal Register is on pace for 79,593 pages.
• For comparison, the 2021 Federal Register totals 74,352 pages, and 2020’s is 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 17 such rules so far in 2021, one from the last week.
• This is on pace for 40 economically significant regulations in 2022.
• For comparison, there were 26 economically significant rules in 2021 and five in 2020.
• The total cost of 2022’s economically significant regulations so far ranges from net savings of $5.69 billion to $25.92 billion. However, this figure is incomplete. Three economically significant rules issued this year do not give the required cost estimates.
• For comparison, the running cost tally for 2021’s economically significant rules ranges from net costs of $13.54 billion to $19.36 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.
• There are 109 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far in 2022. This is on pace for 255 significant rules for the year.
• For comparison, there were 387 such new regulations in 2021, and 79 in 2020.
• So far in 2022, 367 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 857. Thirty-one of them are significant, on pace for 72.
• For comparison, there were 912 rules in 2021 affecting small businesses, with 101 of them classified as significant. 2020’s totals were 668 rules affecting small businesses, 26 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new regulations:

• Don’t misrepresent the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s logo.
• Record keeping rules for political programming.
• Technical revisions to the Affordable Housing Program.
• Exporting semiautomatic firearms.
• Control policy for end-users.
• Four new viticultural areas.
• New safety standards for handheld infant carriers.
• Classifying heart disease risk using acoustic heart signals.
• A delay in new cigarette package warnings.
• Russian sanctions.
• More Russian sanctions.
• COVID-related changes in the Defense Department’s TRICARE program.
• New Veterans Affairs rules for veteran transplant patients.
• The Postal Service is discontinuing special treatment of packages marked “fragile.” Will anyone notice a difference?
• Albacore quotas.
• Energy conservation tests for washing machines.
• Energy conservation standards for manufactured housing.
• Flood insurance questions and answers.

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