This Week in Ridiculous Regulations
Despite a Labor Day-shortened work week, agencies still found time to issue regulations from soap to whales.
On to the data:
- Last week, 65 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 87 the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 35 minutes.
- With 2,581 final regulations published so far in 2016, the federal government is on pace to issue 3,687 regulations in 2016. Last year’s total was 3,406 regulations.
- Last week, 1,504 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,977 pages the previous week.
- Currently at 62,520 pages, the 2016 Federal Register is on pace for 89,315 pages. This would exceed the 2015 Federal Register’s all-time record adjusted page count of 81,611.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 24 such rules have been published so far in 2016, two in the last week.
- The running compliance cost tally for 2016’s economically significant regulations ranges from $4.05 billion to $6.25 billion.
- 197 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published this year.
- So far in 2016, 460 new rules affect small businesses; 76 of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- A ban on antibacterial soap, known in regulatory parlance as “over-the-counter (OTC) consumer antiseptic products intended for use with water.”
- EPA air regulations for Kansas, Texas, Connecticut, Texas again, Iowa, Indiana, and Maryland.
- Hunting migratory birds on Indian reservations.
- A correction to a recent energy efficiency standard for LED lamps.
- Another regulation for avoiding collisions at sea.
- Relatedly, a regulation for how close boaters can get to humpback whales.
- Exporting firearms.
- Environmental activists are backing a potential new regulation that would make it more difficult for coal mining companies to seek financing.
- Performance standards for the Head Start program.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.