A major cost-cutting final rule from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reduced costs by $3.2 billion ($640 million annually) and drove down burdens this week. In total, regulators cut costs by $3.1 billion ($570 million annually) and reduced paperwork by 1.1 million hours.   

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 62
• New Final Rules: 77
• 2014 Significant Documents: 224
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 28,604
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $26.2 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $27.8 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.

Regulation by Industry in 2014
CFR Title-Industry	Regulations	Cost (in millions)	Hours
6-Domestic Security	1	57.4
7-Agriculture	8	$25.2	677,196
8-Aliens and Nationality	4	$21	1,398,138
10-Energy	8	$22,200	91,131
12-Banking	23	$473	1,612,389
14-Aeronautics	109	$793	145,999
15-Foreign Trade	2		2,940
16-Commercial Practices	4		2,759
17-Commodities, Securities	8	$281	423,538
18-Conservation	5	$15	178,601
20-Employees’ Benefits	1	$1.1	6,360
21-Food and Drugs	11	$5,256	3,531,545
22-Foreign Relations	2		-259,800
23-Highways	2	$296
26-Internal Revenue	7		8,345,050
28-Judicial Administration	1	$451
29-Labor	7	$202	919,775
30-Mineral Resources	1	$89	176,321
34-Education	1	$2,360	6,942,377
37-Patents, Copyright	1	$43.4	111,810
38-Veterans’ Relief	1		5,500
40-Environment	17	$16,220	6,136,660
41-Public Contracts	1	$8	107,100
42-Public Health	9	-$2,959	-1,068,665
44-Emergency Management	1	-$19.6	-540,954
45-Public Welfare	7	$693	2,215,249
46-Shipping	1	$0.3	842
47-Telecommunication	9	$70	275,827
48-Federal Acquisition	1		557,939
49-Transportation	13	$2,621	-20,151,471
50-Wildlife and Fisheries	1	$420
Multiple Titles	7	$4,392	-857,015

The HHS final rule will reduce burdens for hospitals, long-term care facilities, and clinical laboratories. For example, hospitals would no longer have to file additional state health care surveys. Counting only cost-cutting measures, the President’s initiative to reduce red tape has produced $10.6 billion in final deregulatory measures and $2.1 billion in proposed cuts.

The administration also cut more than 2.1 million burdens hours in the Medicare program. The 408-page proposal would reduce payments to Medicare providers by $241 million annually and cut hospital costs.  

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 $27.6 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $8 billion in costs to the states, and 159.2 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

The Federal Reserve published a proposed rule for “Concentration Limits on Large Financial Companies.” The proposal adds only 70 paperwork burden hours. 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.

A Note on Notices

There were 532 notices published this week. Regulators proposed 27 new paperwork requirements, imposing 46.2 million paperwork burden hours. Four of these notices monetized the cost of completing paperwork, adding $962,400 to the overall burden.

There were four major changes to existing paperwork requirements (defined as an hourly burden increase or decrease of 500,000 or greater). These changes accounted for a net total increase of 25.2 million burden hours.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $54 billion in compliance costs and has imposed more than 10 million in net paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.