This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

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Aaron Judge finished the baseball season with 62 home runs, setting a new American League season record. President Biden pardoned the sentences of all people convicted of federal marijuana possession and encouraged states to do the same. October surprise season on the campaign trail got off to a dramatic start. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from institutional boilers to school lunch data.

On to the data:

  • Agencies issued 56 final regulations last week, after 61 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every three hours.
  • With 2,418 final regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 3,116 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 31 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 30 the previous week.
  • With 1,581 proposed regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 2,037 proposed regulations this year.
  • For comparison, there were 2,094 new proposed regulations in 2021 and 2,094 in 2020.
  • Agencies published 497 notices last week, after 502 notices the previous week.
  • With 17,433 notices so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 22,465 notices this year.
  • For comparison, there were 20,018 notices in 2021. 2020’s total was 22,458.
  • Last week, 1,584 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,116 pages the previous week.
  • The average Federal Register issue in 2022 contains 317 pages.
  • With 61,216 pages so far, the 2022 Federal Register is on pace for 78,887 pages. For comparison, the 2021 Federal Register totals 74,352 pages; 2020’s total 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 34 such rules so far in 2021, two from the last week.
  • This is on pace for 44 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, 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 is for net savings of $733.45 million to $31.46 billion. The 2020 figure is for 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 194 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far in 2022. This is on pace for 250 significant rules for the year.
  • For comparison, there were 387 such new regulations in 2021 and 79 in 2020.
  • So far in 2022, 669 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 862. Fifty-two of them are classified as significant, on pace for 67.
  • 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.