The Week in Regulation: January 2-6

After 82,420 pages and more than $231 billion in published regulatory costs in 2011, the pace continued into 2012.  This week federal agencies added $484 million to the regulatory rolls and imposed more than 269,000 paperwork burden hours.

Administrative agencies proposed 27 rules and implemented 45 final rules.  Federal agencies issued 9 new documents “deemed significant under [Executive Order] 12866,” bringing the yearly revised total to 9 according to the Federal Register; the federal government has issued 1,008 pages of regulations in 2012. 

EPA headlined the week with a lead smelting rule that is expected to cost $62.9 million and impose 1,600 paperwork burden hours.  Compared to the earlier proposed rule, the final rule increases costs by $2.49 million.   

Dodd-Frank produced two proposed rules this week, one from the Federal Reserve and one from Treasury.  The Federal Reserve proposal on Early Mediation Requirements would implement sections 165 and 166 of Dodd-Frank by including risk-based capital and leverage standards and requirements for risk management.  The proposal is expected to add more than 97,000 paperwork hours. 

The Treasury proposal would implement section 155 of Dodd-Frank by establishing “an assessment schedule for bank holding companies with total consolidated assets of $50 billion or greater.”  There were no listed costs or paperwork requirements.

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 31.5 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.

There were no Affordable Care Act regulations this week.  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 2012 (proposed or final) will exceed $25.1 billion.  Since January 1, the federal government has imposed more than 269,000 annual paperwork burden hours and $484 million in compliance costs.  Projecting a 2,000 hour work year, paperwork requirements alone would force 134 employees to comply with federal compliance burdens.  

Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2012.

On a procedural note, the Regulation Database has been tweaked to ease the tracking of significant rulemakings.  A new Regulation Identification Number (RIN) section has been included.  In addition, a “Net Change” category follows the cost sections to track the increase or decrease in burdens from proposed and final rules.