It was yet another slow week for federal regulatory activity. Regulators added only $5.9 million in annualized costs, $1.5 million in benefits, and 351,000 paperwork burden hours. The Comptroller of the Currency finalized the most notable rulemaking, standards for large banks, insured savings institutions, and insured federal branches.            

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 42
• New Final Rules: 64
• 2014 Significant Documents: 451
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 54,886
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $56.9 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $69.1 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 Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) proposed a rule to require an “additional securement requirement for unattended equipment.” The purpose of the rule is to prevent the “rolling” of hazardous cargo that could cause injuries or death. FRA estimates paperwork will increase by more than 180,000 hours, but costs ($99,000) and benefits ($1.5 million) are low.

Affordable Care Act

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

The Comptroller of the Currency finalized guidelines for a “risk governance framework for large insured national banks.” The administration did not quantify the possible costs of the new framework, but did estimate that it will impose more than 117,000 paperwork burden hours. Assuming an average wage rate of $32.10 per hour, costs could easily exceed $3.7 million annually.

Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage, the legislation has produced more than 60.6 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $24 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.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $126 billion in compliance costs and has imposed 24.2 million in net paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.