The Week in Regulation: June 13-17, 2011

Regulatory costs increased by a staggering $899 million this week after the federal government issued 1,567 pages of new regulations.  Major rules penalizing for-profit colleges and new sunscreen regulations drove costs during a busy week. 

Administrative agencies proposed 49 rules and implemented 70 final rules this week.  The number of significant regulations increased by 9, and there have been 283 “significant” proposals this year; the federal government has now issued 35,712 pages of regulations in 2011.   

A controversial regulation from the Education Department totaled $819 million.  The rule bars federal tuition funding to certain for-profit schools whose students are incapable of making payments on federal loans. 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented a final rule this week regulating consumer sunscreen; the rule would regulate “labeling and effectiveness testing for certain OTC sunscreen products containing specified active ingredients and marketed without approved applications.”  This final rule is effective July 18, 2012 and will increase regulatory compliance costs by $42.5 million.  The 60-day comment period ends on August 17, 2012.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed a rule that amends requirements of the Commodity Exchange Act.  In part one, CFTC will temporarily exempt persons or entities that reference one or more terms required to be “further defined” by Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act, such as “swap,” “swap dealer,” “major swap participant,” or “eligible contract participant.”  In part two, CFTC proposes to “grant relief from certain provisions of the CEA that will or may apply to certain agreements, contracts, and transactions in exempt or excluded commodities.”

To date, the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank remain at over $1 billion, but of the 129 major rulemakings, only 24 contain quantified cost estimates.

For the year the total cost of the regulatory state is more than 68.1 billion, or roughly $582 million a day in compliance costs.  Click here for our database of the major regulations promulgated in 2011. 

Forum Research Assistant Kara Behrens contributed to this report.