Week in Regulation

1.1 Million Paperwork Hours

There were only five regulations that monetized costs or quantified paperwork burden hours this week. Combined, annualized costs were $74 million, compared to $618,000 in benefits; regulators published more than 1.1 million paperwork burden hours.  

Regulatory Toplines

  • New Proposed Rules: 47
  • New Final Rules: 58
  • 2014 Significant Documents: 204
  • 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 26,828
  • 2014 Proposed Rules: $26.1 Billion
  • 2014 Final Rules: $31 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

1

 

45,000

10-Energy

8

$22,200

91,131

12-Banking

21

$480

1,868,319

14-Aeronautics

104

$767

145,999

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

10

$5,256

3,531,545

22-Foreign Relations

1

 

-109,900

23-Highways

2

$296

 

26-Internal Revenue

6

 

8,335,000

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

15

$16,176

6,026,117

41-Public Contracts

1

$8

107,100

42-Public Health

4

$164

1,069

44-Emergency Management

1

-$19.6

-540,954

45-Public Welfare

7

$693

2,215,249

46-Shipping

1

$0.3

842

47-Telecommunication

8

$67

227,746

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 Department of Health and Human Services published four of the five notable regulations. Three were payment regulations under Medicare, primarily transferring federal funds to health care providers. However, additional burdens on providers could also impose costs. HHS’s Hospice Wage Index for FY 2015 could impose $8 million in costs and 105,000 hours; the Inpatient Rehabilitation Payment System could add more than $30 million in costs and 313,000 hours, and the Inpatient Psychiatric Payment System proposed $33 million in burdens and more than 700,000 hours.   

Affordable Care Act

The IRS finalized information reporting for ACA exchanges this week. The agency estimates just 15 respondents will have to comply with 10,505 hours of new paperwork. 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 159.1 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage, the legislation has produced more than 60.5 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $21.8 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 465 notices published this week. Regulators proposed 19 new paperwork requirements, imposing 214,806 paperwork burden hours. None of these notices monetized the cost of completing paperwork.

There were two 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 5.2 million burden hours.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $57.1 billion in compliance costs and has imposed more than 12 million in net paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.

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