Week in Regulation
May 9, 2014
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.