This week regulators added more than $520 million in costs, largely due to new EPA regulations on formaldehyde emissions.  The total paperwork burden also increased sharply, with more than 7.9 million annual hours.  

 

Regulatory Toplines

 

• New Proposed Rules: 56
• New Final Rules: 93
• 2013 Significant Documents: 196
• 2013 Total Pages of Regulation: 36,082
• 2013 Proposed Rules: $45.4 Billion
• 2013 Final Rules: $13.2 Billion

 

AAF has catalogued regulations according to their likely codification in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).  The CFR is organized by title, 1-50, with each title corresponding to an industry or part of government.  This tool will help to determine which sectors of the economy receive the highest number of regulatory actions.

 

Regulation by Industry in 2013

CFR Title-Industry	Regulations	Cost (in millions)	Hours
7-Agriculture	5	$180	32,585,476
8-Aliens and Nationality	2	$719	749,669
9-Animals	1	$47
10-Energy	2	$5,220	56,620
12-Banking	20	$63	2,267,951
13-Business Assistance	1	$-0.7	-26,402
14-Aeronautics	141	$744
15-Commerce, Trade	2		47,116
16-Commercial Practices	4	$230	3,251,573
17-Commodities, Securities	6	1,898	2,868,895
18-Conservation	7	$92	2,555,991
20-Employees’ Benefits	2	$1	6,860
21-Food and Drugs	7	$6,603	10,167,266
22-Foreign Relations	3		-120,600
23-Highways	1	$1	25,080
24-Housing	5	$-19	244,018
26-Internal Revenue	5		400
28-Judicial Administration	1
29-Labor	6	$413	20,809
30-Mineral Resources	2	$55	683,600
31-Treasury	1		5,500
33-Navigable Waters	1	$186	42,126
34-Education	2	$-54	582,958
37-Patents, Copyright	2	$931	779,960
40-Environment	16	$37,493	1,647,791
42-Public Health	11	$-1,314	8,023,788
43-Interior	2	$166	32,904
45-Public Welfare	11	$728	4,601,109
47-Telecommunication	8	$23	863,827
48-Federal Acquisition	3	$0.4	-45,083
49-Transportation	10	$32.6	-535,068
Multiple Titles	4	$2,572	177,432

 

EPA’s pair of proposed rules on formaldehyde emissions will add more than $512 million in costs, with roughly $48 million in benefits.  The total paperwork burden is also substantial, at 7.9 million hours it is the fourth largest EPA collection of information.      

 

Affordable Care Act

 

This week the IRS published its final rule on indoor tanning excise taxes.  At 10,000 paperwork burden hours, the regulatory burdens are comparatively minimal.  

 

Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed an estimated $21.8 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $9.8 billion in costs to the states, and 110.8 million annual paperwork hours.

 

Dodd-Frank

 

The Federal Reserve published a final rule on prohibitions “Against Federal Assistance to Swap Entities.”  The regulation will impose 203 burden hours and the Federal Reserve did not monetize any costs.

 

Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage, the legislation has produced more than 58.3 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $15.4 billion in direct compliance costs.  Based on calculations from the Financial Services Roundtable, Dodd-Frank regulations would require 29,192 employees to file federal paperwork.

 

A Note on Notices

 

This week federal agencies published 425 notices requesting new or revised paperwork burdens from the Office of Management and Budget.  These notices are generally not final, merely requests with a comment period.

 

Agencies requested 59.8 million paperwork burden hours, the equivalent of forcing 29,894 employees into red tape compliance.  The associated costs of these burdens: $45.2 million, or $0.76 per hour. 

 

Total Burdens

 

Since January 1, the federal government has published $58.6 billion in compliance costs, and 79.6 million annual paperwork burden hours.  At the current pace, regulators will publish $128 billion in regulations this year.  Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2013.