Inertia Wins!

Wednesday’s Veterans’ Day holiday made it a short work week, but the Federal Register still passed the 70,000-page mark, with new regulations covering everything from Flugzeugbaus to recreational salmon.

On to the data:

• Last week, 44 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 77 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every three hours and 49 minutes.
• So far in 2015, 2,958 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,377 new regulations this year, fewer than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
• Last week, 1,556 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 1,850 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 70,933 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 80,974 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 31 such rules have been published so far this year, one in the past week.
• The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations ranges from $3.63 billion to $4.88 billion for the current year.
• 257 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2015, 481 new rules affect small businesses; 70 of them are classified as significant.

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• Another regulation for Flugzeugbau gliders. That makes 103 Flugzeugbau regulations since 1994.
• A 311-page Medicare regulation meets the $100 million annual threshold for economic significance, though a precise cost estimate is not exactly forthcoming in the text. Since this is government spending and not compliance costs, I am scoring this rule as zero-cost in the running compliance cost tally.
• Traffic enforcement rules from NASA.
• Energy conservation standards for walk-in coolers and freezers.
• Federal regulations for recreational salmon fishing.

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

New rules last week covered everything from relaxed grape handling to unclaimed funerary objects.

On to the data:

• Last week, 77 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 83 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and 11 minutes.
• So far in 2015, 2,914 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,388 new regulations this year, far fewer than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
• Last week, 1,850 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,137 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 69,377 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 80,671 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 30 such rules have been published so far this year, two in the past week.
• The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations ranges from $3.63 billion to $4.88 billion for the current year.
• 253 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2015, 469 new rules affect small businesses; 67 of them are classified as significant.

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• $479.5 million of new steam-generated electricity rules from the EPA.
• A new Medicare rule aims to save $260 million in government spending in FY 2016. Since this is government spending and not compliance costs, I am scoring this rule as zero-cost in the running compliance cost tally.
• Federal regulations for unclaimed funerary objects.
• Energy efficiency rules for high-rise apartments and condos.
• The federal government has a Watch, Watch Instruments, and Jewelry Program.
• Relaxed handling requirements for grapes from southeastern California.
• New labeling requirements for room air conditioners’ water and energy usage.
• Slowly but surely, the FCC moves into the 20^th century with regulations partially inspired by Nobel economist Ronald Coase’s 1959 article on spectrum auctions. See here and here. It’s good to see the FCC catching up with best practices from two generations ago, though one fears what will happen when its attention turns to the current century. Hopefully that won’t happen until the next century.

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

The pace of new rules has picked up recently, with 80 or more final regulations and more than 2,000 Federal Register pages for the second straight week. New rules cover everything from bricks to housekeepers.

On to the data:

• Last week, 83 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 80 the previous week.
• That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every two hours and one minute.
• So far in 2015, 2,837 final regulations have been published in the Federal Register. At that pace, there will be a total of 3,378 new regulations this year, far fewer than the usual total of 3,500-plus.
• Last week, 2,137 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,048 pages the previous week.
• Currently at 67,526 pages, the 2015 Federal Register is on pace for 80,067 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. 28 such rules have been published so far this year, five in the past week, which is a high for the year.
• The total estimated compliance cost of 2015’s economically significant regulations ranges from $3.15 billion to $4.40 billion for the current year.
• 242 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” have been published so far this year.
• So far in 2015, 461 new rules affect small businesses; 65 of them are classified as significant.

Highlights from selected final rules published last week:

• New EPA rules for bricks and clay will have capital costs of $62.3 million, annual costs of $24.6 million, and will close an estimated two to four businesses.
• New ozone regulations, also courtesy of the EPA. The 178-page rule is economically significant, though the EPA declined to include any cost data with the rule, instead referring the reader to outside documents. This is not good transparency on the EPA’s part. For now, I am scoring it as zero-cost in the running compliance cost tally, but hope to include its figures, if they are in fact publicly available, in the near future.
• 30-day delay on new labor regulations for domestic workers.
• Rules for historical research in the Defense Secretary’s files.
• An economically significant rule for agricultural quarantines. Some fees are being lowered, and others are being adjusted for inflation. But a lengthy section titled “Economic Impacts” never actually says what the total impact will be. This is an unfortunate lack of transparency from the Animal and Plant health Inspection Service, forcing me to score this rule as zero-cost on the running compliance cost tally.
• Government health care being what it is, the Veterans Affairs Department is wisely expanding options for veterans to pursue non-VA health care. The rule is economically significant, with $10 billion of funding through 2017. Since this is government spending and not compliance costs, I am scoring it as zero-cost on the running compliance cost tally.
• Airplane passengers and crew may travel with e-cigarettes in their carry-on luggage, but not in their carry-on luggage. This is “to address an immediate safety risk.”
• $15.4 billion in economically significant education spending over the period 1994-2025. Again, since this is spending, I am scoring it as zero-cost in the compliance cost tally.

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