This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

A recent Environmental Protection Agency rule for dental effluence caused some controversy for violating President Trump’s one-in, two-out policy for new rules. The EPA has yet to announce which two rules it is eliminating. As usual in recent months, most other recent rules are routine FAA airworthiness requirements, Coast Guard safety zones, and the like. Other new rules from the last week range from plumbing products to tart cherries.

On to the data:

• Last week, 108 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 58 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every one hour and 33 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 1,527 final regulations in 2017. At that pace, there will be 3,054 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,853 regulations.
• Last week, 1,971 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 973 pages the previous week.
• The 2017 Federal Register totals 30,719 pages. It is on pace for 61,438 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (which subtracts skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set last year. The unadjusted count was 97,110 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Nine such rules have been published this year, none in the last week.
• The running compliance cost tally for 2016’s economically significant regulations ranges from $6.8 billion to $13.2 billion.
• Agencies have published 141 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year.
• In 2017, 301 new rules affected small businesses; 45 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• NASA is streamlining its review procedures for projects costing less than $100,000.
• Abandoned or expired patent applications.
• The Federal Trade Commission is exempting plumbing products and ceiling fans from energy labeling requirements, but adding them for certain types of water heaters.
• Crop insurance.
• Tax rates for growers of Michigan tart cherries.
• Another Flugzeugbau glider regulation from the FAA.
• Modernizing the exams for potential U.S. Customs employees.
• The yogis at the Fish and Wildlife Service are removing Yellowstone Park’s grizzly bear population from the endangered species list. Ranger Smith declined comment.

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