Regulators published $1.4 billion in total costs this week, with more than 6.7 million paperwork burden hours. Once again, annualized costs trumped benefits: $298 million to $145 million. EPA’s pesticide protection proposal, energy conservation standards for icemakers, and a new health care proposal highlighted the week.

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 59
• New Final Rules: 77
• 2014 Significant Documents: 119
• 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 15,908
• 2014 Proposed Rules: $10.2 Billion
• 2014 Final Rules: $8.6 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	6	$25.2	677,196
10-Energy	5	$4,386	30,000
12-Banking	11	$4.6	1,061,938
14-Aeronautics	65	$669	145,404
16-Commercial Practices	1		680
17-Commodities, Securities	5	$50	372,077
18-Conservation	2	$2	33,812
20-Employees’ Benefits	1	$1.1	6,360
21-Food and Drugs	7	$4,243	2,894,313
22-Foreign Relations	1		-109,900
23-Highways	1	$66.7
26-Internal Revenue	6		8,335,000
28-Judicial Administration	1	$451
29-Labor	6	$152.3	309,600
37-Patents, Copyright	1	$43.4	111,810
38-Veterans’ Relief	1		5,500
40-Environment	9	$1,683.8	5,853,308
41-Public Contracts	1	$7.4	107,100
42-Public Health	3	$44.5	1,069
45-Public Welfare	7	$693.1	2,215,249
46-Shipping	1	$0.3	842
47-Telecommunication	7	$66.9	227,011
49-Transportation	7	$1,634	1,926,169
50-Wildlife and Fisheries	1	$420
Multiple Titles	6	$4,225	-857,015

EPA published the costliest rulemaking this week, a proposal to protect agricultural workers from pesticide exposure. The regulation could add $640 million in total costs, with $73 million in annual costs and $14 million in annual benefits. AAF examined the measure last month and noted that EPA’s own data reveal a declining number of pesticide incident since 2000. At 6.5 million paperwork burden hours, it is one of the most burdensome non-tax rules in 2014.

The Department of Energy proposed new efficiency standards for automatic icemakers. The agency estimates annual costs at $20 million, compared to $131 million in benefits. The comment period will close on May 16, 2014.  

Affordable Care Act

The administration recently released its “Exchange and Insurance Market Standards for 2015.” The proposed rule would regulate health care Navigators, non-discrimination standards, and qualified health plans, among other measures. The administration estimates roughly $90 million in annual costs, more than 160,000 new burden hours, and no monetized benefits.

Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed an estimated cost of $27.5 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $8 billion in costs to the states, and 159.1 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

There were no new Dodd-Frank rulemakings, but the administration did finally release its regulatory impact analysis for the Volcker rule, more than three months after issuing the final rule. The damage: up to $4.3 billion, according to a relatively brief 24-page regulatory analysis. It’s unclear why the administration would rush a final rule without an accompanying analysis that the public had no time to review. The Volcker rule is now the second-costliest Dodd-Frank regulation.

Click here to view the total estimated compliance costs from Dodd-Frank; since passage, the legislation has produced more than 60.4 million paperwork burden hours and imposed $22 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 394 notices published this week. Regulators proposed 13 new paperwork requirements, imposing 1.3 million paperwork burden hours. One of these notices monetized the cost of completing paperwork, adding $83,000 to the overall compliance burden.

There was one major change to existing paperwork requirements (defined as an hourly burden increase or decrease of 500,000 or greater). This change accounted for a net total decrease of 561,927 burden hours.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $18.9 billion in compliance costs and has imposed more than 23.3 million paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.