This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

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A former president called for terminating the U.S. Constitution. Socialism failed again, this time in Peru. Congress passed a bill to protect same-sex marriage. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic party to become an independent. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from cattle contracts to reallocated cod.

On to the data:

  • Agencies issued 61 final regulations last week, after 87 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 45 minutes.
  • With 2,958 final regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 3,133 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 49 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 49 the previous week.
  • With 1,928 proposed regulations so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 2,042 proposed regulations this year.
  • For comparison, there were 2,094 new proposed regulations in 2021 and 2,094 in 2020.
  • Agencies published 404 notices last week, after 391 notices the previous week.
  • With 21,288 notices so far in 2022, agencies are on pace to issue 22,551 notices this year.
  • For comparison, there were 20,018 notices in 2021. 2020’s total was 22,584.
  • Last week, 1,599 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,427 pages the previous week.
  • The average Federal Register issue in 2022 contains 322 pages.
  • With 75,890 pages so far, the 2022 Federal Register is on pace for 80,392 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 42 such rules so far in 2021, one from the last 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 costs of $44.93 billion to $77.70 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 $13.54 billion to $19.36 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 243 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far in 2022. That is on pace for 257 significant rules for the year.
  • For comparison, there were 387 such new regulations in 2021 and 79 in 2020.
  • So far in 2022, 892 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 888. Sixty-six of them are significant, on pace for 70.
  • For comparison, in 2021 there were 912 rules 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:

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