CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week In Regulation

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• 86 new final rules were published last week, up from 81 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation precisely every hour and 53 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• All in all, 2,213 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
• If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,875 new rules.
• 1,549 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 42,879 pages.
• At its current pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 76,600 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 25 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, 235 final rules that meet the broader definition of “significant” have been published in 2012.
• So far this year, 421 final rules affect small business. 60 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• The federal government has a Florida Tomato Committee. It is increasing its assessment rates for tomato growers.
• On September 2, a tug boat race will be held near Olympia, Washington. The Coast Guard passed a related regulation.
• Correction issued for the new federal tanning tax.
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued regulations to protect 6 bird species that do not live in the United States.
• The EPA regulates offset lithographic printing.

For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.