A final Department of Energy rule for walk-in coolers and freezers added $9.8 billion in costs, leading the week. Combined, regulators published $9.87 billion in total costs; annualized benefits were $1.1 billion, compared to $589 million in annualized costs. New paperwork burdens were negligible.     

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 37
• New Final Rules: 75
• 2014 Significant Documents: 258
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 32,858
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $26.3 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $50.5 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.

Of course, the headliner this week was EPA’s proposed rule regulating existing sources of greenhouse gases. AAF’s analysis is here, where we examined the employment claims from EPA, cost, benefits, and a new U.S. generation fleet. EPA projects 46 to 50 gigawatts of coal-fired generation could become uneconomic because of the rule. As we noted, “To upgrade the entire coal fleet, even after predicted retirements, would cost the industry $1.16 billion.”

The Department of Energy published its final efficiency rule for walk-in coolers and freezers. It adds $511 million in annual costs. AAF reviewed the rule here, and noted the final rule is $1.6 billion more expensive (net present value) than its proposed version. This latest rule is now the seventh “economically significant” energy rule published in 2014, with the promise of several more by the December.

Affordable Care Act

There were no notable ACA regulations this week. Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed an estimated cost of $27.5 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $8 billion in costs to the states, and 159.2 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

There were no notable Dodd-Frank regulations this week. Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage, the legislation has produced more than 60.4 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $21.7 billion in direct compliance costs. Based on calculations from the Financial Services Roundtable, Dodd-Frank regulations would require 30,211 employees to file federal paperwork.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $76.8 billion in compliance costs and has imposed more than 11.7 million in net paperwork burden hours. The administration is on pace to publish approximately $180 billion in costs this year. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.