Author Archives: Ryan Young

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• 95 new final rules were published last week, up from 84 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every hour and 46 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 1,583 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,968 new rules.
• 1,628 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 31,432 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 77,040 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 22 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $14.3 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, 172 significant final rules have been published in 2012.
• So far this year, 292 final rules affect small businesses. 40 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• Good news on the international trade front: the International Trade Administration published a rule withdrawing a tariff quota on imported fabric that expired in 2009 (timely!). The rule also repeals rules for short supply procedures. “Short supply procedures” means that when domestic supply falls short of demand, the government blocks fewer imports than usual to ease the shortage. Now the ITA will stay out of the way entirely, as far as cotton is concerned. This bit of housecleaning came about through President Obama’s January 2011 Executive Order, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review.”
• The official legal meaning of the term “unblockable drain” has been revised, thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• It is against federal rules for a commercial driver to make entries to an automatic on-board recording device while his vehicle is in motion. A new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rule specifies that it’s ok for anyone else in the vehicle to do so.
• Morelet’s crocodile is no longer an endangered species, though the crocs “will remain protected under the provisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.”

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

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• 62 new final rules were published last week, down from 70 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every 2 hours and 43 minutes — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 1,384 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,838 new rules.
• 1,577 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 28,191 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 76,606 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 20 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $15.4 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.
• One economically significant rule was published last week. There were a total of 5 significant actions last week, as defined by Executive Order 12866. So far, 152 significant final rules have been published in 2012.
• 12 of last week’s final rules affect small business. So far this year, 259 final rules affect small businesses. 40 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• An economically significant rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services implements section 2401 of the Affordable Care Act. It increases this year’s federal Medicaid spending by $820 million, and this year’s state Medicaid spending by $480 million. Since these costs are government spending instead of compliance costs, I am scoring it as zero-cost for this year’s compliance cost tally.
• Just in time for summer, the FDA published a rule delaying implementation of an earlier rule amending its surprisingly detailed sunscreen regulations.
• The EPA is liberalizing its [alpha]-[p-(1,1,3,3-Tetramethylbutyl)phenyl]-[omega]- hydroxypoly(oxyethylene) tolerance requirements for pesticides. A separate rule liberalizes “residues of α-(p-nonylphenol)-ω-hydroxypoly(oxyethylene) mixture of dihydrogen phosphate and monohydrogen phosphate esters and the corresponding ammonium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and zinc salts of the phosphate esters and α-(p-nonylphenol)-ω-hydroxypoly(oxyethylene) sulfate, ammonium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and zinc salts” in pesticides.
• If you want to get a commercial driver’s license, you should be aware of new federal minimum standards.

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