This Week in Ridiculous Regulations

August ended with a bang, leaving the 2018 Federal Register on the brink of the 45,000-page mark going into the Labor Day holiday. Agencies passed 89 new regulations last week, ranging from 71-pound packages to floating cabins.

On to the data:

• Last week, 89 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 65 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every one hour and 53 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 2,233 final regulations in 2018. At that pace, there will be 3,284 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,236 regulations.
• Last week, 1,310 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,482 pages the previous week.
• The 2018 Federal Register totals 44,729 pages. It is on pace for 65,774 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. Five such rules have been published this year, none in the last week.
• The running compliance cost tally for 2018’s economically significant regulations is a net savings ranging from $348.9 million to $560.9 million.
• Agencies have published 75 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year.
• So far in 2018, 384 new rules affect small businesses; 20 of them are classified as significant. 

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• In a world that has only several hundred cable, satellite, and over-the-air TV channels, streaming TV series and movies, broadcast, satellite, and Internet radio stations, a constant stream of documentaries, blogs, news and commentary websites, YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media, paper and electronic book publishing, audiobooks, newspapers, and magazines, the Federal Communications Commission has issued a new regulation titled ”Rules and Policies To Promote New Entry and Ownership Diversity in the Broadcasting Services.”
• Tax increase for Irish potatoes, but only ones from Colorado.
• Compliance rules for Chief Compliance Officers.
• The army has repealed a regulation for army bands, of the musical variety, competing with civilian bands.
• The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s Appraisal Subcommittee has a new address.
• It’s not just people: a new regulation will reduce the number of fish from Mexico allowed to enter the U.S.
• With the rise in package shipping over the last several years, the Postal Service has issued a new rule allowing it to refuse to mail packages over 70 pounds.
• Now that cell phones have been commonplace for about two decades, the Federal Communications Commission is allowing carriers a choice in whether or not to participate in its little-used Emergency Alert System.
• The Commodity Credit Corporation has a Market Facilitation Program. I leave it to you to decide if that’s a misnomer.
• In light of recent tariffs, the same caveat applies to the Agricultural Trade Promotion Program.
• Fee increase for going through U.S. Customs.
• Floating cabins.
• The Education Department is removing two outdated regulations.

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