The Week in Regulation: November 28 to December 2

The post-holiday rush on regulations produced almost 3,000 pages in the Federal Register, EPA’s multi-billion dollar CAFE standards for cars and light trucks, and word that EPA has finalized its controversial Boiler MACT rule.  The CAFE standards alone shut down the Federal Register site until the late afternoon on Thursday.

On the reform push, the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010) is currently on the House floor and is expected to pass; the Regulatory Flexibility Act (H.R. 527) passed last night with 263 votes, including 28 Democrats; the REINS Act (H.R. 10) cleared the House Rules Committee on Thursday night and should be considered next week on the House floor. 

Administrative agencies proposed 40 rules and implemented 94 final rules.  Federal agencies issued 14 new documents “deemed significant under [Executive Order] 12866,” bringing the yearly revised total to 760 according to the Federal Register; the federal government has issued 75,770 pages of regulations in 2011.  (The current pace will produce more than 82,000 pages of regulations in 2011.)

The heightened CAFE standards, 54.5 miles per gallon for cars by 2025, produced a 567-page proposed rule, accompanied by an 827-page Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA).  Here are five notes from the RIA and the proposed rule.

• “[T]he higher CAFE standards will produce a net impact ranging from a net cost of $141.4 billion to a net benefit of $703.0 billion.”
• On benefits: “inter-generational benefits from future GHG reductions … to extend over a period from approximately fifty to two hundred or more years in the future….”
• Increased electricity consumption: “28,460.3 gigawatt hours in additional combined increases in electricity consumption.”
• Fatalities: “$10 million in increased fatality costs….”
• On impact for light trucks: “The best information that the agency has at this time, therefore, indicates that requiring light truck fuel economy improvements at the 4% annual rate could create potentially severe economic consequences.”  In 2021, new CAFE standards will require a 6.4 percent increase for light trucks.

On the financial regulatory front, Dodd-Frank generated a proposed rulemaking from the Comptroller of Currency and a final rule on “Capital Plans.”  The final Federal Reserve rule on Capital Plans requires certain banks to submit annual capital plans to the Federal Reserve.  On occasion, banks have to provide the Fed prior notice before making a “capital distribution.”  The final rule contains a lower revised paperwork burden of 432,764 hours.  However, this is still roughly 216 full-time employees worth of filings (assuming a 2,000 hour work year).

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.  This reduction is due to lower paperwork burdens from the final “Capital Plans” rule.  

There was one final and one proposed health care rule this week.  CMS finalized a rule for “Outpatient Prospective Payment,” which will impose more than 138,000 paperwork hours.  CMS also proposed a rule on payment policies and physician fee schedules; this proposal is expected to impose 219,955 annual 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 $249 billion.  Since January 1, the federal government has imposed more than 119.4 million annual paperwork burden hours and $230.1 billion in compliance costs. 

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