This week in ridiculous regulations: Slender salamanders and joint employers

Israel and Hamas agreed to a temporary cease-fire. OpenAI’s board of directors fired CEO Sam Altman, then re-hired him and fired themselves. President Joe Biden turned 81. Javier Milei won Argentina’s presidency. Meanwhile, agencies issued new regulations ranging from crop names to mail prices.

On to the data:

• Agencies issued 68 final regulations last week in a four-day week, after 61 the previous five-day week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 28 minutes.
• With 2,716 final regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 3,018 final regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 3,168 new final regulations in 2022, and 3,257 new final regulations in 2021.
• Agencies issued 33 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, after 43 the previous week.
• With 1,920 proposed regulations so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 2,133 proposed regulations this year.
• For comparison, there were 2,044 new proposed regulations in 2022, and 2,094 in 2021.
• Agencies published 374 notices last week, after 529 notices the previous week.
• With 20,688 notices so far in 2023, agencies are on pace to issue 22,987 notices this year.
• For comparison, there were 22,505 notices in 2022, and 20,018 in 2021.
• Last week, 1,728 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,978 pages the previous week.
• The average Federal Register issue in 2023 contains 368 pages.
• With 82,777 pages so far, the 2023 Federal Register is on pace for 91,974 pages.
• For comparison, the 2022 Federal Register totals 80,756 pages, and 2021’s is 74,352 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (subtracting 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. This recently changed to $200 million. There are 27 such rules so far in 2023, three in the last week.
• This is on pace for 30 economically significant regulations in 2023.
• For comparison, there were 43 economically significant rules in 2022, and 26 in 2021. The higher threshold will likely lower this year’s number.
• The total estimated cost of 2023’s economically significant regulations so far ranges from $90.48 billion to $62.60 billion, according to numbers self-reported by agencies.
• For comparison, the running cost tally for 2022’s economically significant rules ranges from net costs of $45.28 billion to $78.05 billion. In 2021, net costs ranged from $13.54 billion to $1992 billion. The exact numbers depend on discount rates and other assumptions.
• There were six regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant” last week, after eight the previous week.
• So far this year, there are 253 new regulations meeting the broader definition of “significant.” This is on pace for 281 significant regulations in 2023.
• For comparison, there were 255 such new regulations in 2022, and 387 in 2021.
• So far in 2023, 706 new regulations affect small businesses, on pace for 784. Seventy-two of them are significant, on pace for 80.
• For comparison, in 2022 there were 912 rules affecting small businesses, 70 of them significant. 2021’s totals were 912 rules affecting small businesses, 101 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new final regulations:

• The NLRB’s joint employer rule is now finalized.
• Numbering policies for modern communications.
• Ballot mail ancillary service endorsements.
• Coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery funds.
• Secondary lead smelter performance reviews.
• Updated Medicare payment policies.
• Price changes for competitive international mail services.
• Corrected actuary user fees.
• Manual of regulations and procedures for federal radio frequency management.
• Credit union charitable donation accounts.
• Those prescription drug ads you see on TV.
• Russian sanctions.
• Coastguard chemical categorization updates… for 2022.
• Crop names.
• Conservators and receivers for agricultural finance.
• A safety zone along Lake Charles, Louisiana.
• Price changes for mail.
• A correction to a revised definition of “commercial item” for federal acquisitions.
• Wagner-Peyser Act staffing.
• Garnishing federal employees’ wages for repaying debts owed to the federal government.
• Electric monitoring for groundfish.

And from last week’s proposed regulations:

• Definition of energy property and rules applicable to the Energy Credit.
• Supplemental restraint systems on aircraft.
• Extended public comment period for a new gas can rule, now open until December 8.
• Threatened species status for the Kern Canyon slender salamander.
• Endangered species status for the relictual slender salamander.
• Modernizing Great Lakes pilotage.
• Postage evidencing systems.
• Market dominant postal products.
• Jefferson County emissions monitoring.
• Vehicle-to-vehicle communications. This will be important for self-driving cars.
• An EPA proposed regulation has several greenhouse gas emission standards and repeals the affordable clean energy rule.
• The IRS is disallowing certain conservation-related tax deductions by partnerships and S corporations.
• New Hampshire regional haze.
• Supporting the Head Start workforce.

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