Regulators published more than $4.1 billion in annual costs, compared to $19.7 million in benefits; there were 3.3 million paperwork burden hours added. A final rule changing the compliance date for the “International Classification of Diseases” (ICD) led the week.      

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 47
• New Final Rules: 80
• 2014 Significant Documents: 394
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 46,664
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $54.7 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $61.6 Billion

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 Department of Health and Human Services published another ICD delay, which will cost private entities and local governments roughly $4 billion. The rule imposes no new paperwork requirements, but it would impose unfunded mandates on private entities.

The administration proposed a requirement on federal contractors to help “eradicate compensation discrimination.” Contractors will now have to supply wage data by sex, race, ethnicity, and certain job categories. The measure could impose $33 million in upfront costs, with $12 million in annual costs. It also adds approximately 400,000 paperwork burden hours.

Affordable Care Act

There were no notable heath care rulemakings this week. Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed a cost of $27.5 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $11.7 billion in costs to the states, and 162.1 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage, the legislation has produced more than 60.3 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $21.8 billion in direct compliance costs. Based on calculations from the Financial Services Roundtable, Dodd-Frank regulations would require 30,154 employees to file federal paperwork.

A Note on Notices

There were 414 notices published in the Federal Register this week. The administration approved a collection for annual stress tests at more than 38,000 burden hours, a steep decline from the previous requirement.

The Office of Management and Budget approved 31 paperwork requirements, increasing the paperwork burden by 312,000 hours. There were no major changes to existing paperwork (defined as an hourly burden increase or decrease of 500,000 or greater).

The largest increase in paperwork burden hours imposed by an information collection requirement (ICR) was 429,000 hours from FCC. The largest decrease in paperwork burden hours imposed by an ICR was -213,000 hours from the Federal Reserve.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $116.3 billion in compliance costs and has imposed 23 million in net paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.