The Week in Regulation: October 22-26

Mon, 2012-10-29 04:37 | Regulation | Sam Batkins
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The regulatory slow down continued again this week, with just $24 million in published costs.  The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) final “Cramming” paperwork collection was the only notable regulation.

Regulatory Toplines

  • New Proposed Rules: 48
  • New Final Rules: 77
  • 2012 Significant Documents: 520
  • 2012 Total Pages of Regulation: 65,454
  • 2012 Proposed Rules: $16.4 billion
  • 2012 Final Rules: $214.4 billion

OMB approved of FCC’s “Empowering Consumers to Prevent and Detect Billing for Unauthorized Charges” rule; the regulation imposes more than 2 million paperwork burden hours.  FCC estimates approximately 4,500 businesses would be affected by the collection, and the costs would eclipse $15.9 million.  The actual cost per hour for the new paperwork collection is $13.  

ObamaCare

There were no notable ObamaCare rulemakings this week.  Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed an estimated $20.4 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $7.2 billion in costs to the states, and 63.2 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

There were no notable Dodd-Frank rulemakings this week.  Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage the legislation has produced more than 51.2 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $14.2 billion in direct compliance costs.  Based on calculations from the Financial Services Roundtable, Dodd-Frank regulations would require 25,645 employees to file federal paperwork.

A Note on Notices

This week federal agencies published 499 notices.  In these notices, agencies typically request new or revised paperwork burdens from the Office of Management and Budget.  These notices are generally not final, merely requests with a comment period.

Agencies requested 492.8 million paperwork burden hours, the equivalent of forcing 246,000 employees into red tape compliance.  The associated costs of these burdens: $351.3 million, or $0.71 per hour.

Total Burdens

At the current pace, the published regulatory burden for 2012 will exceed $279 billion.  Since January 1, the federal government has imposed $230 billion in compliance costs and more than 127.4 million annual paperwork burden hours.  For comparison, it took 7 million hours to build the Empire State Building.  

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