Monthly Archives: January 2013

This week in the world of regulation:

• It was a 3-day work week due to New Year’s celebrations, but agencies still managed to publish 28 new final rules. This is down from 54 rules the previous week, which was also shortened due to Christmas.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation precisely every 6 hours — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• All in all, 28 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year.
• If this keeps up, the total tally for 2013 will be 2,333 new final rules.
• Last week, 850 new pages were added to the 2013 Federal Register, for a total of 76,434 pages.
• At its current pace, the 2013 Federal Register will run 70,834 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. No such rules have been published so far in 2013.
• So far, one final rule that meets the broader definition of “significant” has been published in 2013.
• So far this year, 4 final rules affect small business; none of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• The federal government has a United Soybean Board. A new regulation revises its representation requirements.
• The southern willow flycatcher is the unwitting recipient of 1,227 stream miles of critical habitat.
• The Drug Enforcement Administration is establishing codes for 26 synthetic drugs. They will all be classified as Schedule I drugs.

For more data, go to TenThousandCommandments.com.

Welcome to 2013. As of today, more than 400 new laws come into effect in states across the country. CNBC sums up a few of the weirder ones:

In 2013 in Illinois, motorcyclists will be able to “proceed through a red light if the light fails to change.” In Kentucky, releasing feral or wild hogs into the wild will be prohibited. And in Florida, swamp buggies will not legally be considered motor vehicles.

The Illinois motorcycle law may sound strange, but it actually makes a lot of sense in certain situations. Many traffic lights are triggered by sensors that detect metal. They work just fine for passenger cars, but motorcycles are small enough that it can be difficult to get them in a detectable position, meaning a light may potentially never change. Hopefully riders use their new powers wisely.

The article also points to an odd new Oregon law: if your business has a job opening, and you’re unwilling to consider unemployed applicants, you are not allowed to advertise the opening. This would seem to have rather obvious free speech issues, and is unlikely to survive a court challenge on First Amendment grounds.

All in all, state legislatures across the country passed 29,000 new laws in 2012.

At the federal level, a total of 3,706 new regulations hit the books in 2012, as Wayne Crews pointed out today. Now that the holidays are over, agencies have hit the ground running, publishing another 13 new rules in today’s Federal Register, the first issue of the new year. The rules cover topics ranging from soybeans to Rolls-Royce jet engines.

It’s already looking like a busy year for regulatory watchdogs.