This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

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The FBI raided former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from street markings to salmonella prevention.

On to the data:

  • Agencies issued 47 final regulations last week, after 48 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every three hours and 34 minutes.
  • With 1,886 final regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 3,062 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 54 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 32 the previous week.
  • With 1,326 proposed regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 2,153 proposed regulations this year.
  • For comparison, there were 2,094 new proposed regulations in 2021 and 2,094 in 2020.
  • Agencies published 432 notices last week, after 445 notices the previous week.
  • With 13,875 notices so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 22,524 notices this year.
  • For comparison, there were 20,018 notices in 2021. 2020’s total was 22,458.
  • Last week, 1,892 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,895 pages the previous week.
  • The average Federal Register issue in 2022 contains 322 pages.
  • With 49,973 pages so far, the 2022 Federal Register is on pace for 81,125 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 24 such rules so far in 2021, one from the last week.
  • This is on pace for 39 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 is for net savings of $12.48 billion to $19.59 billion, according to numbers provided by the agencies themselves. However, this figure is incomplete. Three economically significant rules issued this year lack the required cost estimates.
  • For comparison, the running cost tally for 2021’s economically significant rules ranges from net savings of $18.20 billion to net costs of $13.86 billion. The 2020 figure is for net savings of $2.04 billion to $5.69 billion, mostly from estimated savings on federal spending. The exact numbers depend on discount rates and other assumptions.
  • There are 156 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far in 2022. This is on pace for 253 significant rules for the year.
  • For comparison, there were 387 such new regulations in 2021 and 79 in 2020.
  • So far in 2022, 522 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 842. Forty of them are significant, on pace for 65.
  • 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:

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