It was a slow week for federal regulation, with just $134 million in costs. Annualized costs were $29.9 million, compared to $2 million in benefits; paperwork accelerated by more than 18,000 hours. An EPA proposal on containment monitoring led the week. The per capita regulatory burden for 2015 is $592.

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 34
• New Final Rules: 55
• 2015 Total Pages of Regulation: 77,230
• 2015 Proposed Rules: $92.6 Billion
• 2015 Final Rules: $98.06 Billion

The American Action Forum (AAF) has catalogued regulations according to their codification in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The CFR is organized into 50 titles, with each title corresponding to an industry or part of government. This snapshot will help to determine which sectors of the economy receive the highest number of regulatory actions.

EPA proposed a rule to require public water utilities to collect information on contaminants in tap water. For example, information included would contain data on “cyanotoxins associated with harmful algal blooms.” EPA estimated annual costs of the rule at $25.3 million, with minimal paperwork burdens; EPA did not quantify or monetized benefits.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) finalized a measure to improve the safety of train exterior side doors. Exterior doors will now be powered, contain obstruction detection equipment, and train crews will undergo required safety briefings on exterior doors. The annual costs and benefits of the rule are minor: $400,000 in costs compared to $2.1 million in benefits.

Affordable Care Act

Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed costs of $49.9 billion in state and private-sector burdens and 175.1 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

Click here to view the total estimated revised costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage, the legislation has produced more than 75.6 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $35.8 billion in direct compliance costs.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $190.7 billion in compliance costs ($98.06 billion in final rules) and has imposed 111.3 million in net paperwork burden hours (59.5 million from final rules). Click below for the latest Reg Rodeo findings.