Regulators didn’t slow down this week, adding more than $4.5 billion in total costs. Annual burdens were $3.7 billion, compared to no quantified benefits, and more than 2.8 million paperwork burden hours. For perspective, this week’s regulatory burden equates to $14 per person.                 

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 47
• New Final Rules: 62
• 2014 Significant Documents: 513
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 61,562
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $81.6 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $73.4 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 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposal regulating home health agencies and their participation in Medicare and Medicaid. The rulemaking estimates $138 million in annual burdens with more than 2.7 million new paperwork burden hours.

Affordable Care Act

Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed revised costs of $40 billion in state and private-sector burdens and 162.1 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

Three agencies finalized a rule for liquidity coverage ratios at covered banking institutions. The measure affects only 20 institutions, but these entities hold the majority of Treasury-supervised assets. Although the goal of the rule is to increase solvency and liquidity in the financial system, the administration concedes that banks may “recoup increased costs by investing in riskier assets with higher returns or by charging higher fees and greater lending spreads.” The regulation estimates overall costs up to $4 billion, with $3.6 billion in annual burdens.

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 485 notices. The Office of Management and Budget approved 60 paperwork requirements, decreasing the total paperwork burden by 147,500 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.  However, the Social Security Administration reduced paperwork compliance costs by $75 million.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $155.1 billion in compliance costs and has imposed 33.2 million in net paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.