After $2.8 billion in regulatory costs last week, regulators bested that performance with $2.9 billion this week. A health care proposal to reform “Discharge Planning” led the pack, along with two significant EPA rules on power plant discharges and protections for agricultural workers. In total, annualized costs this week were $1.3 billion, compared to $497 million in benefits, and a somewhat ridiculous 16 million hours of paperwork. To put the paperwork in perspective, it would take more than 8,000 full-time employees to complete the requirements from the last five days of new regulation. The per capita regulatory burden for 2015 is $560.

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 38
• New Final Rules: 77
• 2015 Total Pages of Regulation: 69,110
• 2015 Proposed Rules: $90.6 Billion
• 2015 Final Rules: $90 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.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sought to revise discharge planning for federal health care. The measure is designed to ensure a transition between acute care hospitals and post-acute care settings. Medical care providers will incur costs as a result of discharge planning, up to $510 million annually, and more than 5.3 million paperwork hours. CMS expects benefits from reductions in morbidity and mortality, but did not quantify them.

EPA finalized two significant regulations this week. One oversees the discharge of toxics and heavy metals from power plants. The “Effluent Limitations Guidelines” rule imposes annual costs of $471 million, a steep drop from the proposed version ($954 million). There is a range in benefits from cleaner water, but the midpoint is $433 million. AAF reviewed the final rule here.

The other EPA measure is a final rule designed to protect agricultural workers from pesticide exposure. When AAF reviewed the proposed rule, we noted the more extensive training procedures, warning labels, and safety equipment designed to protect workers. Despite the $14 million in benefits, the proposal did have net costs of $59 million. The final rule widens that gulf, to net costs of $360 million and more than 10.4 million paperwork burden hours.

Affordable Care Act

CMS finalized a rule designed to ensure access to Medicaid services. However, the burdens are minimal, with $2 million in costs and 27,000 paperwork hours. Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed costs of $47.9 billion in state and private-sector burdens and 165.9 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 75.5 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $34.3 billion in direct compliance costs.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $180.6 billion in compliance costs ($90 billion in final rules) and has imposed 98.2 million in net paperwork burden hours (47.7 million from final rules). Click below for the latest Reg Rodeo findings.