This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
While the number of economically significant rules (costing more than $100 million per year) is down from previous years, the 81 new rules from the last week still range from work surfaces to spirulina extract.
On to the data:
- Last week, 81 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 108 the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hour and five minutes.
- Federal agencies have issued 1,608 final regulations in 2017. At that pace, there will be 3,116 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,853 regulations.
- Last week, 992 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,971 pages the previous week.
- The 2017 Federal Register totals 31,711 pages. It is on pace for 61,456 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 146 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year.
- In 2017, 311 new rules affected small businesses; 46 of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- Antelope Valley air plans.
- Is Amtrak’s near-monopoly on long-distance passenger rail finally on the way out?
- A tax cut for Walla Walla sweet onions.
- Walking-working surfaces.
- Composite wood formaldehyde emissions.
- Preventing collisions at sea.
- Importing Siluriformes fish.
- Spirulina extract is now exempt from certain color additive rules.
- Congratulations to the Garlock family on their upcoming wedding and accompanying fireworks display, and for their upcoming Coast Guard-enforced safety zone in the Saint Lawrence River near their ceremony in Alexandria Bay, New York.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.