Confronting A Surge In Costly Federal Rules

As of Monday, May 13, there have been 1,148 rules and regulations finalized among the 41,830 pages published to date in the 2024 Federal Register.

Page tallies of over 800 per day have suddenly become routine. Last week’s 4,225 pages represented nearly double 2024’s weekly pace so far.

At any given moment several thousand rules and regulations populate the production process. There are several flavors of “significant” rules, the costliest subset of which consists of rules the Biden administration deems “Section 3(f)1 Significant” (S3F1).

The significance of significance: Rooted in a Clinton-era executive order which until recently showcased $100 million “economically significant” rules, the S3F1 designation under Biden now instead refers to rules attaining a threshold of $200 million in annual economic effects. Now, lesser rules costing “only” $100 million or deemed significant due to certain other non-cost characteristics can fly under the radar.

Read the full article on Forbes.