Week in Regulation

A Quarter Billion in New Costs

Regulators were busy this week with 20 notable regulations. Combined, they could impose $312 million in costs and more than 359,000 paperwork burden hours. In addition, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) withdrew two energy conservation standards (reflector lamps and manufactured housing) that had been under review for more than two years.

Regulatory Toplines

  • New Proposed Rules: 51
  • New Final Rules: 67
  • 2014 Significant Documents: 109
  • 2014 Total Pages of Regulation: 14,608
  • 2014 Proposed Rules: $7.3 Billion
  • 2014 Final Rules: $5.9 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

4

$4,021

30,000

12-Banking

11

$4.6

1,061,938

14-Aeronautics

57

$555

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

$63.3

309,600

37-Patents, Copyright

1

$43.4

111,810

38-Veterans’ Relief

1

 

5,500

40-Environment

8

$1,043

-687,554

41-Public Contracts

1

$7.4

107,100

42-Public Health

3

$44.5

1,069

45-Public Welfare

5

$403.6

2,050,763

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

$29.1

-857,015

The Department of Labor proposed the largest regulation this week, imposing up to $22.3 million in annual costs. The proposal would require affected entities to provide a guide “that will enable responsible plan fiduciaries to effectively review the disclosures.” The regulatory analysis notes that quantified benefits, $40.3 million, result from “time savings.”

Affordable Care Act

There were five Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations this week. However, they only imposed $9.4 million in costs, 49,000 burden hours, and no benefits. The largest regulation establishes “Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2015.”

In addition, AAF has expanded its ACA database and included additional data on paperwork that was only available through notices, and not in proposed and final rules. The new database contains figures on benefits as well. At a seven percent discount rate, annualized costs of the ACA are $6.8 billion, compared to $2.6 billion in benefits.

Since passage, based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed an estimated cost of $27.2 billion in private-sector burdens, approximately $8 billion in costs to the states, and 159 million annual paperwork hours.

Dodd-Frank

There were two Dodd-Frank rulemakings this week, but they did not impose quantified costs or burden hours. 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 $17.8 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 557 notices published this week. Regulators proposed 21 new paperwork requirements, imposing 4.4 million paperwork burden hours. Three of these notices monetized the cost of completing paperwork, adding a total of $1.2 million 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 1.5 million burden hours.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $13.3 billion in compliance costs and has imposed more than 16.6 million paperwork burden hours. Click here for our comprehensive database of regulations and rulemakings promulgated in 2014.

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