This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

The week’s big headlines were about the G7 meeting and our allies’ efforts to avoid a trade war, and the meeting with North Korea in Singapore. But behind the scenes, agencies issued 46 proposed regulations and 80 final regulations, ranging from milk handling to microneedles.

On to the data:

• Last week, 80 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 58 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 6 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 1,437 final regulations in 2018. At that pace, there will be 3,201 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,236 regulations.
• Last week, 1,286 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,144 pages the previous week.
• The 2018 Federal Register totals 27,115 pages. It is on pace for 61,070 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. Two such rules have been published this year, none in the last week.
• The running compliance cost tally for 2016’s economically significant regulations is $215 million.
• Agencies have published 48 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year.
• In 2018, 248 new rules affect small businesses; 13 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• The federal government has a Milk Marketing Order. A new rule tells how to handle milk in California.
• Classification of microneedling devices.
• Restaurants don’t charge for water, but the Delaware River Basin Commission does.
• The Food and Drug Administration regulates which colors are allowed for surgical stitches. Black No. 4 is now added to the list.
• The Coast Guard is establishing a temporary safety zone in the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland during the well-named Blazing Paddles stand-up paddleboard race.
• A new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rule requires drivers to record the hours they drive a commercial vehicle off-duty for personal purposes.
• Collisions at sea strike again. That makes 572 such regulations since 1994.
• Some good news on international trade: tree tomatoes from Ecuador are now allowed to be imported into the United States.

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