This week regulators added $221 million in regulatory costs. Annual burdens were $217 million, compared to $515 million in quantified benefits; agencies published more than 700,000 paperwork burden hours. A consumer safety rule for off-highway vehicles led the week.                      

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 41
• New Final Rules: 59
• 2014 Significant Documents: 575
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 69,756
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $79.4 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $78.5 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.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) proposed a rule to modify “Recreational Off-Highway Vehicles (ROV). The measure would increase lateral stability, vehicle handling, and limit ROV speed to no more than 15 mph, unless passengers have seat belts that prevent ejection in the event of a rollover or accident. CPSC estimates costs of approximately $22 million, with $515 million in benefits.

Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a revision of data submission for companies involved in clinical drug trials. The goal is to “enhance patient access to and understanding of the results of clinical trials.” HHS estimates costs of approximately $50 million and more than 620,000 paperwork burden hours.

Affordable Care Act

Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed costs of $40.3 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 492 notices. The Office of Management and Budget approved 42 paperwork requirements, increasing the total paperwork burden by 44,000 hours.

There were no major changes in paperwork burdens, which is defined as an hourly burden increase or decrease of 500,000 hours or greater. The Department of Commerce did reduce compliance costs by $4 million.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $157.9 billion in compliance costs and has imposed 37.4 million in net paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.