The Week in Regulation: December 19-23

The end of the year has federal agencies scrambling to meet deadlines and revise final rules.  EPA published its revisions to area and major industrial boilers with slight changes in costs, but a significant bump in paperwork hours.  EPA’s final Toxics rule, which is not yet formal, carries lower costs but more compliance hours.  NLRB also headlined the week, publishing its final “quickie” elections rule.   

Administrative agencies proposed 59 rules and implemented 94 final rules.  Federal agencies issued 14 new documents “deemed significant under [Executive Order] 12866,” bringing the yearly revised total to 810 according to the Federal Register; the federal government has issued 80,724 pages of regulations in 2011. 

EPA finalized its Boiler MACT rules for major and area sources.  The rule for area sources is not expected to alter the earlier final rule, which imposed $897 million in costs and 2.7 million paperwork burden hours.  The final major source rule adds 324,964 paperwork burden hours, revised upward from 280,459 hours.  Thus, the net increase for the year is recorded as 44,505 hours.   

NLRB published the final version of its “Representation-Case Procedures” rule.  NLRB did not state any costs or paperwork requirements.  The Board adopted the rule with just two affirmative votes, and with Member Craig Becker leaving at the end of the year, NLRB will be reduced to just two voting members.

There were thirteen Dodd-Frank rulemakings this week but most were administrative rules that impose no costs.  The National Credit Union Administration proposed a rule to amend loan participation, which it estimates will add 8,000 burden hours. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau initiated rulemakings on Regulations B, C, DD, G, H J, K, L, M, V, and Z but the Bureau estimates the rules do “not impose any new substantive obligations on persons subject to the existing [regulations].”           

Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage the legislation has produced (in proposed and enacted rules) more than 31.4 million new paperwork burden hours.  According to estimates from the Financial Services Roundtable, Dodd-Frank regulations would require 15,929 employees to file federal paperwork.

On the health care front, CMS published a proposed rule under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).  CMS estimates increased CHIP transparency will cost $387.4 million and almost 8 million paperwork burden hours. 

Since passage, the Affordable Care Act has imposed an estimated $9.1 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $2.2 billion in costs to the states, and 30.3 million annual paperwork hours.

At the current pace, the total regulatory burden for 2011 (proposed and final) will exceed $235 billion.  Since January 1, the federal government has imposed more than 132.1 million annual paperwork burden hours and $230 billion in compliance costs.  Projecting a 2,000 hour work year, paperwork requirements alone would force 67,071 employees to comply with federal compliance burdens.  

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