CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• 65 new final rules were published last week, up from 58 the previous (holiday-shortened) week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 35 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 1,629 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,726 new rules.
• 1,298 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 34,127 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 76,863 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 24 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $14.5 billion. Two of the rules do not have cost estimates, and a third cost estimate does not give a total annual cost. We assume that rules lacking this basic transparency measure cost the bare minimum of $100 million per year. The true cost is almost certainly higher.
• No economically significant rules were published last week. So far, 187 significant final rules have been published in 2012.
• So far this year, 311 final rules affect small businesses. 50 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, of all agencies, is revising federal regulations for certifying substance abuse experts.
• The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is strengthening enforcement for violations of the Horse Protection Act.
• Just in time for the release of Men in Black 3, ATF published new residency requirements for aliens acquiring firearms.
• The Fish and Wildlife Service has changed its official taxonomy for the African wild ass from Equus asinus to Equus africanus.

For more data, updated daily, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.