This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

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With a full quarter of 2018 in the books, agencies have issued just one economically significant rule—an increase in State Department fees amounting to $115 million this year, barely meeting the $100 million threshold for economic significance. Even so, agencies in the last week issued new regulations ranging from Chilean cherimoyas to migratory birds.

On to the data:

  • Last week, 63 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 61 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 40 minutes.
  • Federal agencies have issued 755 final regulations in 2017. At that pace, there will be 3,045 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,281 regulations.
  • Last week, 964 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,002 pages the previous week.
  • The 2018 Federal Register totals 14,172 pages. It is on pace for 57,146 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (which subtracts 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. One such rule has been published this year, none in the last week.
  • The running compliance cost tally for 2018’s economically significant regulations is $115 million.
  • Agencies have published 24 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year.
  • In 2018, 123 new rules affected small businesses; 7 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

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