Yesterday, the 2011 Federal Register hit the 70,000 page milestone. This is just the 14th time in the Register‘s 76-year history the unadjusted page count has gotten that high. And remember, it’s still November. It’s on pace to top 80,000 pages.
To be more precise, assuming 250 working days this year, the projected page count is currently 80,641. That would place 2011 in top-five territory for all-time unadjusted page counts. President Carter set the record in his final year with 87,012 pages.
Adjusting that count for thousands of blank pages and jumps yields 73,258 pages, a then-record that was broken five times by George W. Bush and once (so far) by Barack Obama. He set the new record adjusted page count last year with 81,405.
The usual caveat applies here. Federal Register page counts are not a perfect measure of regulatory activity. A rule that costs little can ramble on for dozens of pages; a rule costing billions can fit on a single page. But when page counts threaten all-time records, it’s a pretty good indicator that the regulation industry is booming.
In short: the next time someone complains about America’s unregulated cowboy capitalism, you should ask them where such a thing might actually be found.
This year’s Federal Register is on pace to be 80,190 pages long. That’s an average of 220 pages of fresh proposed rules, final rules, notices, and more every single day.
If this pace keeps up, this year’s Register will make for slightly easier reading than 2010, which set a new record with an 81,405 adjusted page count.
Think about that for a second. 160,000 pages in two years. Even Stephen King couldn’t write that much. Amazing that so many people claim this or that part of the economy is unregulated. With 165,000 pages already in the Code of Federal Regulations and more coming every day, it just ain’t so.
In July, President Obama issued an executive order requiring independent agencies to comb through their books and axe obsolete or harmful rules. A similar order for cabinet-level agencies in January saved an estimated $1.5 billion in regulatory costs, or a little less than 0.1 percent of total annual federal regulatory costs.
The order gives agencies 100 days to act. The FCC struck a little early by announcing yesterday it was getting rid of 83 rules. The White House is expected to release the final package for all independent agencies today. Total estimated savings are $10 billion over five years. Combined with the earlier executive order, federal regulatory costs could go from $1.752 trillion per year to about $1.749 trillion per year.
One of the rules the FCC is chucking is the Fairness Doctrine, which empowers the FCC to regulate the ideology of political programming. It hasn’t been enforced since 1987 because it violates the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech”). But until now, nobody thought to actually remove it from the Code of Federal Regulations. It’s been sitting there the whole time!
Other hygienic measures the FCC is taking include “the deletion of obsolete “broadcast flag,” cable programming service tier rate, and broadcast applications and proceedings rules,” according to an FCC press release.
The repeals will become official upon publication in the Federal Register.
Today is the last working day of 2010 which means the last edition of the 2010 Federal Register came out this morning. The final unadjusted page count is 82,589 pages. That’s the third-highest ever.
Page counts are typically highest in years when power changes hands. This year was no exception. The two other highest unadjusted page counts occurred when Carter handed off to Reagan, and when Clinton handed off to Bush. The Bush-Obama hand-off featured the largest-ever adjusted page count, 79,435.
This time, the spike happened with only the House changing parties. The next few years will tell us a lot. 2010′s high page count may have been a combination of this year’s ambitious legislation plus a midnight rush to get the White House’s regulatory wish list in place before the other team can block it.
Or, as in the past, it could be that we have reached a new, permanent plateau of frenzied federal activity.
I’m hoping for the former. But the Republicans in Congress are no friends of limited government, so one never knows. They will reliably oppose anything the other team comes up with. But as the Bush years showed, they’ll also vote for the exact same policies so long as it’s their team that’s proposing them. This is not a recipe for fiscal or regulatory health.
The Federal Register is not a perfect barometer of how active government is. Sometimes rules that ramble on for dozens of pages are almost innocuous. An economically disastrous regulation can take up less than a page. But in general, high page counts mean a more active government.
Over at the AmSpec blog, I break down some of the numbers behind the Federal Register’s latest milestone — 75,000 pages.
President Bush still holds the adjusted page count record. But President Obama is putting up quite a challenge; at its current 327-page per day pace, the 2010 Federal Register would be 81,560 unadjusted pages long.
And it’s on pace to hit a near-record 80,447 pages. Over at the Daily Caller, I crunch some of the numbers and offer up some Ideas for regulatory reform, inspired by Wayne Crews’ 10,000 Commandments.
-The Federal Register’s accelerating pace is due to two things. One is implementation of the health care and financial regulation bills. The other is that, fearing a party change in Congress, lame-duck regulating may have already begun.
-Keeping Federal Register page counts in check is important. Keeping the contents of those pages in check is even more important. Comprehensive regulatory reform involves much, much more.
-Such as five-year sunsets for all new regulations unless specifically reauthorized by Congress.
-And a comprehensive look at the regulatory state in each year’s Economics Report of the President.
-And a bipartisan commission to comb through the books for harmful or obsolete regulations. They would hand their recommendations for repeal to Congress for an up-or-down vote, without amendment.
I’m a bit late getting to this, but an SEC “Order Approving Proposed Rule Change Relating to the Restated Certificate of Incorporation of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.” pushed the 2010 Federal Register to the 40,000 page mark on Tuesday.
The Federal Register’s page growth has been accelerating as the year has progressed. It is currently on pace for 76,536 pages. That’s about 2,000 pages more than the Bush administration’s average. In January, the projected page count was only 63,187 pages.
Earlier in the year, an average day’s volume contained 278 pages. Now it’s up to 306 pages per day. As new rules hit the books as required by the health care bill, the financial regulation bill, and other legislation, the pace could pick up further. And if Democrats lose control of Congress, we can expect a very busy lame duck session.
The Code of Federal Regulations already weighs in at 157,000 pages. It will probably be pushing 160,000 before too long.
With a notice from the Defense Department that it is selling $122 million of equipment to Great Britain, the 2010 Federal Register passed 30,000 pages.
After 103 working days, the total page count is 30,265. Assuming 250 working days in a year, this year’s Federal Register is on pace for 73,459 pages.
The average count during the Bush administration was 73,416 pages.
Like most of President Obama’s policies, this represents less than a one percent change from the Bush years.
This morning, the 2010 Federal Register passed the 25,000 page mark with an “Issuance of Order for Implementation of Additional Security Measures and Fingerprinting for Unescorted Access to Florida Power and Light Company” from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
After 87 working days, the Federal Register stands at 25,098 pages. That’s an average of 288 pages every single day of proposed rules, final rules, notices, and other federal doings.
Assuming 250 working days in a year, the Register is on pace for 72,121 pages, a slight increase over 2009’s 69,676 pages.
Back in January, it was on pace for a mere 63,187 pages. The pace has been accelerating since.
Can President Obama top President Bush’s final Federal Register, which ran to 79,435 pages? We shall see what the coming months bring.
If you work for the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a regulation requires you to keep records of your off-the-record communications.
Which means off-the-record communications aren’t really off the record.
In fact, 18 CFR 385.2201(b) requires FERC to post a notice in the Federal Register whenever this happens. There was one today, for example. It’s public!
Which brings up the following conundrum: if FERC policy is that off-the-record communications are actually on the record, then there are no off-the-record communications. Therefore, regulations applying to off-the-record communications are at best redundant , because there are no off-the-record comments.
Oh, never mind.
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