The Week in Regulation: August 8-12, 2011

This week regulators piled on $2.9 billion in new burdens and added more than 1.3 million annual paperwork hours.  EPA’s final interstate “Transport” rule imposed the highest compliance costs.

Administrative agencies proposed 58 rules and implemented 69 final rules.  Federal agencies issued 13 “significant” documents, bringing the yearly total to 389 according to the Federal Register; the federal government has issued 50,402 pages of regulations in 2011, including more than 2,400 this week.  

This week EPA released its controversial interstate Transport rule, which regulates ground-level ozone and particulate matter.  EPA targeted more than two-dozen eastern states for heightened compliance.  The rule will impose more than $2.7 billion in compliance costs and 185,000 annual paperwork burden hours.  In addition, EPA anticipates its actions could increase consumer energy prices by $700 million and substantially decrease U.S. exports.  Click here for a more thorough review of EPA’s transport rule.  

Dodd-Frank regulators took a break this week.  Only the Comptroller of the Currency released a final Dodd-Frank rulemaking.  The rule governs management functions within the federal government, imposing no private-sector burdens.

There were no new health care rulemakings this week but since passage the Affordable Care Act has imposed more than $8.2 billion private-sector burdens, approximately $2.1 billion in direct costs to states, and 12.9 million annual paperwork hours.

At the current pace, the total regulatory burden for 2011 will exceed $105.6 billion.  Since January 1, the federal government has imposed more than 47.2 million annual paperwork burden hours and $65 billion in compliance costs. 

Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations promulgated in 2011.