This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

We hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving and/or Black Friday. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from nuclear drug tests to food tracing.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 57 final regulations last week, after 74 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 57 minutes.
• With 2,799 final regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 3,096 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 29 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 41 the previous week.
• With 1,830 proposed regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 2,024 proposed regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 2,094 new proposed regulations in 2021 and 2,094 in 2020.
• Agencies published 451 notices last week, after 492 notices the previous week.
• With 20,493 notices so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 22,669 notices this year.
• For comparison, there were 20,018 notices in 2021. 2020’s total was 22,584.
• Last week, 2,155 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,680 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue in 2022 contains 322 pages.
• With 72,858 pages so far, the 2022 Federal Register is on pace for 80,858 pages. For comparison, the 2021 Federal Register totals 74,352 pages; 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 40 such rules so far in 2021, two from the past week.
• That 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 costs of $44.72 billion to $76.93 billion. The 2020 figure is for net savings of $2.04 to $5.69 billion, mostly from estimated savings on federal spending. The exact numbers depend on discount rates and other assumptions.
• There are 233 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far in 2022. This 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, 782 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 865. Sixty-six of them are significant, on pace for 73.
• 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:

• Safety standards for clothing storage units.
• Sweet corn insurance improvements.
• Delayed date for new cigarette package warning labels.
• The northern and southern population segments of the lesser prairie-chicken are being given threatened and endangered status, respectively.
• Fee information in mutual fund shareholder reports.
• Standards for safeguarding customer information from the Federal Trade Commission.
• Interstate natural gas tariffs.
• Postage price changes.
• New standards and tests for aircraft engine emissions.
• Medicare payment adjustments.
• Medical certification for commercial balloon operations.
• Preventing Social Security fraud.
• A new regulation under the Children’s Gasoline Burn Prevention Act.
• Arms trafficking involving Cyprus.
• Drug testing for nuclear workers.
• Longer duration for aircraft registration.
• \18\F]FP-CIT is being removed from the controlled substances list, while zipeprol is being added to it.
• Tracing food.

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