Regulatory activity was once again slow, with just $50 million in costs. There were more than a quarter-million new paperwork burden hours, however. An EPA proposal regulating mercury in dental offices and a final rule amending direct loan requirements led the week.                   

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 40
• New Final Rules: 74
• 2014 Significant Documents: 535
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 63,806
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $81.8 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $73.5 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.

EPA plans to control the release of “dental amalgam,” which contains high levels of mercury. Routinely, mercury is discharged into the public sewage system, but the agency plans to require dentists to capture it before release; this would prevent the discharge of about four tons annually. EPA anticipates costs of $49 million and more than 150,000 new paperwork burden hours.

The Department of Education finalized amended direct loan rules this week. The measure would increase costs by $5.7 million and add more than 350,000 paperwork hours. The rule requires PLUS loan counseling for graduate and professional students, and counseling for parent borrowers with adverse credit.

Affordable Care Act

Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed costs of $40 billion in state and private-sector burdens and 162.1 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 63.8 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $32.7 billion in direct compliance costs. Based on calculations from the Financial Services Roundtable, Dodd-Frank regulations would require 31,940 employees to file federal paperwork.

A Note on Paperwork

This week, federal agencies published 483 notices. The Office of Management and Budget approved 95 paperwork requirements, increasing the total paperwork burden by 20.1 million hours.

There were two major changes in paperwork burdens, which is defined as an hourly burden increase or decrease of 500,000 hours or greater. DHS finalized a 1.7 million-hour increase in paperwork, but that was trumped by an 18.6 million-hour increase from HHS.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $155.4 billion in compliance costs and has imposed 32.7 million in net paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.