This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated while giving a speech. Boris Johnson resigned as UK Prime Minister. Jobs numbers remained strong in the U.S. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from silky sharks to turbofan engines.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 47 final regulations in a four-day week last week, after 78 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every three hours and 34 minutes.
• With 1,632 final regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 3,138 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 23 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 45 the previous week.
• With 1108 proposed regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 2,131 proposed regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 2,094 new proposed regulations in 2021, and 2,094 in 2020.
• Agencies published 342 notices last week, after 460 notices the previous week.
• With 11,620 notices so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 22,346 notices this year.
• For comparison, there were 20,018 notices in 2021. 2020’s total was 22,458.
• Last week, 1,291 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,754 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue in 2022 contains 318 pages.
• With 41,024 pages so far, the 2022 Federal Register is on pace for 78,892 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 19 such rules so far in 2021, one from the last week.
• That is on pace for 37 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 is net savings of $11.56 billion to $20.51 billion, according to numbers provided by the agencies themselves. However, that 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 133 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far in 2022. That is on pace for 258 significant rules for the year.
• For comparison, there were 387 such new regulations in 2021 and 79 in 2020.
• So far in 2022, 456 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 877. Thirty-six of them are significant, on pace for 69.
• 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:

• Selling bonds.
• Russian sanctions.
• Lowering the Gerald Desmond Bridge in Long Beach, California.
• An updated postal product list.
• The smooth coneflower is being upgraded from endangered to threatened.
• Priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria for charter school grants.
• Debt collection practices.
• Williams turbofan engines.
• Protection of human subjects from the Department of Labor.
• Sanctions against global terrorism.
• A new financial assistance program from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation will result in roughly $74.3 billion to $90.8 billion in transfer payments. For purposes of this series’ running tally of economically significant regulatory costs, I am including only the estimated $150 million in estimated administrative costs.
• Grants for repairing single family homes.
• Radiological barrier maintenance.
• Silky sharks.
• Single-use plastics in the military.
• Next Generation Television.
• The ivory-billed woodpecker’s removal from the endangered species list is being postponed for six months.
• Possibly coming this fall are energy conservation standards for consumer furnaces.
• Three species will not be added to the endangered species list: The evening fieldslug, the Mammoth Spring crayfish, and Weber’s Whitlow grass.
• Rural hospital participation conditions.
• The definition of “foreign currency contract.”
• Industry classification for small business size standards.

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