Inertia Wins!

This New Yorker cartoon reminds of Joe Stigler’s adage that intentions do not equal results. Click the image to enlarge.

Just another week in the world of regulation:

• 84 new final rules were published last week, up from 65 the previous week. That’s the equivalent of a new regulation precisely every 2 hours — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All in all, 1,713 final rules have been published in the Federal Register this year. If this keeps up, the total tally for 2012 will be 3,754 new rules.
• 1,934 new pages were added to the 2012 Federal Register last week, for a total of 36061 pages. At this pace, the 2012 Federal Register will run 77,718 pages.
• Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. The 24 such rules published so far in 2012 have compliance costs of at least $14.5 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, 195 significant final rules have been published in 2012.
• So far this year, 324 final rules affect small businesses. 54 of them are significant rules.

Highlights from final rules published last week:

• Summer festivals and July 4^th fireworks celebrations are happening soon all over the country, and the Coast Guard is getting ready for them. They published rules enacting temporary safety zones in Ellison Bay, WI; Sheboygan, WI; Smithfield, VA; Boston, MA; Duluth, MN; Erie, PA; and other places across the country. State and local governments are apparently unable to do this themselves.
• Looks like filovirus testing on non-human primate livers is about to become a little more expensive, thanks to new user fees from the Department of Health and Human Services.
• Hold on to your wallets. The FCC is continuing to implement its National Broadband Plan for Our Future.
• What would Eli Whitney think of this? The EPA regulates cotton gins.
• The dusky gopher frog, previously known as the Mississippi gopher Frog, is the recipient of new critical habitat, courtesy of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

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