This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

The new Congress began with a lot of drama over selecting a speaker. The Federal Trade Commission announced its intention to ban non-compete clauses. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from vitamins to crabs.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 41 final regulations last week, after 82 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every four hours and six minutes.
• With 41 final regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 2,563 final regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 3,168 new final regulations in 2022 and 3,257 new final regulations in 2021.
• Agencies issued 23 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 40 the previous week.
• With 23 proposed regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 1,438 proposed regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 2,044 new proposed regulations in 2022 and 2,094 in 2021.
• Agencies published 221 notices last week, after 505 notices the previous week.
• With 221 notices so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 11,050 notices this year.
• For comparison, there were 22,505 notices in 2022 and 20,018 in 2021.
• Last week, 1,132 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,702 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue in 2023 contains 283 pages.
• With 1,132 pages so far, the 2023 Federal Register is on pace for 56,600 pages.
• For comparison, the 2022 Federal Register totals 80,756 pages; 2021’s is 74,352 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 no such rules so far in 2023.
• That is on pace for no economically significant regulations in 2023 (this projection will almost certainly change).
• For comparison, there were 43 economically significant rules in 2022 and 26 in 2021.
• The total cost of 2023’s economically significant regulations so far is for net costs of zero, according to numbers provided by the agencies themselves.
• For comparison, the running cost tally for 2022’s economically significant rules is for net costs of $45.28 billion to $78.05 billion. In 2021 net costs ranged from $13.54 billion to $19.36 billion. The exact numbers depend on discount rates and other assumptions.
• There are four new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far in 2023. That is on pace for 250 significant rules for the year.
• For comparison, there were 255 such new regulations in 2022 and 387 in 2021.
• So far in 2023, one new regulation affects small businesses, on pace for 63. One of them is classified as significant, on pace for 63.
• For comparison, in 2022 there were 912 rules affecting small businesses, 70 of them significant. 2021’s totals were 912 rules affecting small businesses, 101 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new regulations:

• The Comptroller of the Currency is adjusting its civil penalties for inflation.
• So is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• And the Commerce Department.
• And the Veterans Affairs Department.
• And the Environmental Protection Agency.
• And the Federal Communications Commission. We’ll be seeing a lot of these in the coming weeks.
• Sulfur dioxide emissions in Missouri.
• A correction to a recent Medicare rule for hospital payments.
• Marine mammal casualties in naval training exercises.
• Fish specifications for 2023.
• Deep-sea red crab specifications.
• Vitamin D3 additives.
• Classifying knee implants.
• The Postal Service will no longer use the term “sacks” as a unit of measure.
• Shoulder spacer classification.
• Virtual reality pain relief therapy.
• Mitigating COVID-19’s spread in Head Start Programs.

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