With most of December still to go, the 2015 Federal Register is already the seventh largest ever, going back to 1936. It remains on pace to set the all-time page count record. New regulations from the last week cover everything from catfish inspections to swap entities.
On to the data:
- Last week, 61 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 60 the previous week.
- That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 48 minutes.
- So far in 2015, 3,146 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,376 new regulations this year, fewer than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
- Last week, 1,247 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,227 pages the previous week.
- Currently at 75,917 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 81,457 pages. This would break the all-time record set in 2010, with 81,405 pages.
- Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 34 such rules have been published so far this year, three in the past week.
- The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations ranges from $3.68 billion to $4.93 billion for the current year.
- 282 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
- So far in 2015, 518 new rules affect small businesses; 82 of them are classified as significant.
Highlights from selected final rules published last week:
- 42 pages of new catfish inspection rules.
- Lower assessment rates for onion growers in certain parts of Idaho and Oregon.
- Minimum wage requirements for federal contractors.
- A compliance guide for small businesses involved in federal acquisitions.
- The FCC continues to revise its spectrum auction policies.
- A new regulation for those of you thinking of fishing for bigeye tuna in Guam.
- Two new swap regulations, courtesy of the Dodd-Frank bill.
For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and@RegoftheDay on Twitter.
