Category Archives: regulation

Spring Training began for all 30 Major League Baseball teams, bringing joy across the nation. Meanwhile, agencies issued new final regulations ranging from grains ounce equivalence to inactive fishing boats.

On to the data:

• Last week, 66 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 33 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 361 final regulations in 2020. At that pace, there will be 2,912 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 2,964 regulations.
• There were also 61 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, for a total of 265 on the year. At that pace, there will be 2,138 new proposed regulations in 2020. Last year’s total was 2,106 proposed regulations.
• Last week, agencies published 410 notices, for a total of 2,593 in 2020. At that pace, there will be 20,912 new notices this year. Last year’s total was 21,804.
• Last week, 1,271 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,536 pages the previous week.
• The 2020 Federal Register totals 8,715 pages. It is on pace for 70,283 pages. The 2019 total was 70,250 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (which subtracts skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set in 2016.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. One such rule has been published this year. Four such rules were published in 2019.
• The running cost tally for 2020’s economically significant regulations is currently zero. 2019’s total ranges from net savings of $350 million to $650 million, mostly from estimated savings on federal spending. The exact number depends on discount rates and other assumptions.
• Agencies have published 11 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year. 2019’s total was 66 significant final rules.
• So far in 2020, 71 new rules affect small businesses; four of them are classified as significant. 2019’s totals were 501 rules affecting small businesses, with 22 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new final regulations:

• Conveyance of small tracts of forest.
• Unified carrier fees for truckers.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a new regulation for its registers of both active and inactive fishing boats.
• Grains ounce equivalents for the federal government’s food table.
• The 2020 Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Lobster Harvest Guidelines are out now.
• The Small Business Administration is changing its Express Loan regulations.
• The U.S. is changing how it deals with Least Developed Countries through the World Trade Organization.
• Changes to Medicare payments.
• New energy standards for appliance.
• Ecuadorean archaeology.

For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.

The new year started off with a literal bang, though as of this writing the worst Iran scenario seems to have been avoided. The Senate is poised to move on its two biggest items, impeachment and the USMCA trade agreement, though the timelines for both are uncertain. On the regulatory front, the 2020 Federal Register took just five working days to exceed 1,000 pages. New final regulations for the week range from air compressors to beef promotion.

On to the data:

• Last week, 62 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 48 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 20 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 83 final regulations in 2020. At that pace, there will be 2,965 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 2,964 regulations.
• There were also 28 proposed regulations in the Federal Register last week, for a total of 41 on the year. At that pace, there will be 1,465 new proposed regulations in 2020. Last year’s total was 2,106 proposed regulations.
• Last week, agencies published 281 notices, for a total of 412 in 2020. At that pace, there will be 14,715 new notices this year. Last year’s total was 21,804.
• Last week, 1,308 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,194 pages the previous week.
• The 2020 Federal Register totals 1,730 pages. It is on pace for 61,786 pages. The 2019 total was 72,561 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (which subtracts skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set in 2016.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. One such rule has been published this year. Four such rules were published in 2019.
• The running cost tally for 2020’s economically significant regulations is currently zero. 2019’s total ranges from net savings of $350 million to $650 million, mostly from estimated savings on federal spending. The exact number depends on discount rates and other assumptions.
• Agencies have published three final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year. 2019’s total was 66 significant final rules.
• So far in 2020, 12 new rules affect small businesses; one of them is classified as significant. 2019’s totals were 501 rules affecting small businesses, with 22 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new final regulations:

• Landfill emissions in California.
• Price changes for postage.
• A new definition of the term “telecommunications relay service.”
• Beef Promotion and Research Rules and Regulations.
• A tax increase for handling apricots in Washington State.
• New regulations for “certificates of protection for varieties of plants” from the federal government’s Plant Variety Protection Office, pursuant to the Plant Variety Protection Act.
• “Addition of Software Specially Designed To Automate the Analysis of Geospatial Imagery to the Export Control Classification Number 0Y521 Series.”
• Published on January 3, a safety zone regulation for a New Year’s Eve fireworks show in Sacramento, California.
• Energy conservations standards for portable air conditioners, commercial boilers, air compressors, and uninterruptible power supplies. The boiler regulation is the year’s first economically significant regulation, meaning its annual impact is more than $100 million. Its cost estimate ranges from $350 million to $609 million in 2015 dollars.

For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.

Happy New Year, everyone. We’re doing a slightly different format this week, on account of the new year starting mid-week. With just two days’ worth of data so far, year-to-date totals and annual projections for 2020 are not yet very informative. Also, Wayne Crews did a year-end look at regulation in 2019 for Forbes, and I did one here. In another piece, Wayne found that for every law passed by Congress in 2019, agencies issued 28 new regulations. He calls this ratio the Unconstitutionality Index. See also related coverage in the Washington Examiner (twice) and the Epoch Times. With those bases already covered, this week’s roundup will simply summarize last week’s new regulation highlights so they don’t get lost in the ether. Back to business as usual next week.

From the 27 final regulations issued from December 30-31, 2019:

• Labeling guidance for “Serving Sizes of Foods That Can Reasonably Be Consumed at One Eating Occasion, Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed, Serving Size-Related Issues, Dual-Column Labeling, and Miscellaneous Topics.”

• Seven new defense acquisitions regulations. See them all here.

• Supervision of non-bank financial companies.

• You only live once: air quality in the Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District, or YSAQMD.

• The FDA is loosening some of its pre-market notification requirements for new medical devices.

From the 21 final regulations issued from January 2-3, 2020 (no Federal Register on New Year’s Day):

• In-season adjustments for a groundfish fishery.

• No Universal Service Fund money can go to Huawei. Expanding this rule to include all private businesses would be even better.

• Medicare penalties are being adjusted for inflation.

• Training for railroad employees.

• Corrections to several Medicare programs.

• The Hawaiian hawk is no longer an endangered species.

For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.

Happy New Year, everyone. Now that 2019 is just about over, we have some data on how much new regulation hit the books. Note that these numbers are preliminary and might change. The source for most of the numbers is FederalRegister.gov. The page number counts are taken from the Federal Register’s daily digest email. Wayne Crews’ Ten Thousand Commandments also has abundant data.

The general story the numbers tell is that the Trump administration has been steadily increasing its pace of regulatory activity. It has enacted some positive reforms through Executive Order, such as its one in, two out rule, and two orders to make regulatory dark matter more transparent. Dark matter is regulation that has the force of law, but never went through the proper public notice-and-comment rulemaking process. The administration missed an opportunity to codify these reforms in proper legislation when Republicans held both chambers of Congress, so these reforms are vulnerable to reversal when the White House eventually changes hands. In the long run, this may end up as the Trump administration’s biggest missed opportunity.

Deregulatory efforts will likely continue in 2020, but will likely to be more than offset by regulatory increases elsewhere. Trade barriers have more than doubled since 2017. While the USMCA trade agreement will keep tariffs against Canada and Mexico in check, it contains substantial new regulatory burdens and non-tariff trade barriers. Upcoming agreements with China, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, if these happen, due in part to USMCA’s precedent, will also likely contain substantial new regulatory burdens.

The emerging antitrust alliance between national conservatives on the right and progressives on the left may also result in major new regulatory barriers against competition that will not necessarily show up in rule counts or Federal Register page counts.

With that for context, here are some early data on new regulation in 2019:

• There were 2,106 proposed regulations in 2019. This is very close to 2018’s 2,072 proposed regulations, and a nearly 15 percent increase from the Trump administration’s first year figure, 1,837 proposed regulations in 2017.

• 2,964 final regulations. This is down from 2018’s 3,367 final regulations and 2017’s 3,280 final regulations. This makes 9,405 new final regulations during the Trump administration from its January 20, 2017 inauguration through year-end 2019. At that pace, it will likely pass the 10,000 mark in February or March 2020.

• 21,804 agency notices. This is where a lot of regulatory dark matter appears—rules which have the force of law, but were never put through the proper rulemaking process, which includes a public notice-and-comment period. 2019 was down slightly from 2018’s 22,025 notices and 2017’s 22,137 notices. From inauguration through year-end 2019, the Trump administration issued 64,485 agency notices.

• 72,561 Federal Register pages. This is the highest figure of the Trump era, and a sharp increase over the Trump administration’s first two years. Using adjusted page counts, the 2018 Federal Register was 64,582 pages, and 2017’s was 61,950 pages. Significantly, 2019’s page-count increase happened despite near-zero activity during the month of January, when the federal government was partially shut down. It is likely that at least some pages that would have appeared in January instead appeared during later months, resulting in little total change. But it is also possible items were simply never published—which likely represents decreased transparency rather than decreased activity. We will likely never know the exact balance.

Interesting, and busy, times are ahead.

Federal workers got a three-day week as a Christmas present this year. Agencies still put out 323 notices, 50 proposed regulations, and 1,342 Federal Register pages. Just two more Federal Register editions remain in 2019. New final regulations for the week range from guaranteed housing loans to mercury management fees.

On to the data:

• Last week, 35 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 63 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every four hours and 48 minutes.
• Federal agencies have issued 2,937 final regulations in 2019. At that pace, there will be 2,961 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,367 regulations.
• Last week, agencies published 323 notices, for a total of 21,589 in 2019. At that pace, there will be 21,676 new notices this year. Last year’s total was 21,656.
• Last week, 1,342 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,064 pages the previous week.
• The 2019 Federal Register totals 71,734 pages. It is on pace for 72,313 pages. The 2018 total was 68,302 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (which subtracts skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set in 2016.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Four such rules have been published this year. Five such rules were published in 2018.
• The running cost tally for 2019’s economically significant regulations currently ranges from savings of $4.39 billion to $4.08 billion, mostly from estimated savings on federal spending. The 2018 total ranges from net costs of $220.1 million to $2.54 billion, depending on discount rates and other assumptions.
• Agencies have published 66 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year. 2018’s total was 108 significant final rules.
• So far in 2019, 492 new rules affect small businesses; 22 of them are classified as significant. 2018’s totals were 660 rules affecting small businesses, with 29 of them significant.

Highlights from last week’s new final regulations:

• More farm subsidies.
• The term “digital divide” hasn’t been part of the public policy debate for about two decades now, as technological innovation has made fast, wireless internet access available to everyone, rendering the term obsolete. The term lives on at the FCC.
• New energy standards for incandescent lamps.
• Integrity for government-run health insurance exchanges.
• “Creation of Definition of Activities That Are Not Exports, Reexports, Retransfers, or Temporary Imports,” as regards international arms trafficking.
• Guaranteed loans for housing, as though willing a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.
• Spanish mackerel.
• Mercury management fees.
• The U.S. Navy is allowed to kill a certain amount of marine mammals as part of their training exercises.
• Radiological emergency response plans.

For more data, see Ten Thousand Commandments and follow @10KC and @RegoftheDay on Twitter.