The first full week of June was a stale one in terms of federal rulemaking. The costliest regulatory action clocked in at $4.2 million; the most deregulatory action brought less than $70,000 in savings. Between both proposed and final rules, agencies published roughly $16.9 million in net costs and 10,958 hours of new paperwork. The per capita regulatory burden for 2018 is negative $14.49.

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 46
• New Final Rules: 80
• 2018 Total Pages of Regulation: 26,604
• 2018 Final Rules: -$4.7 Billion
• 2018 Proposed Rules: $8.3 Billion

Tracking Regulatory Modernization

The only deregulatory action contributing savings towards the regulatory budget under Executive Order (EO) 13,771 came from the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The final rule expands “the scope of the exemptions from the licensing requirements for dealers and exhibitors” under the Animal Welfare Act. USDA estimates that this will save affected entities up to $68,500 annually in costs associated with attaining a relevant license.

According to AAF analysis, since the start of FY 2018 (beginning Oct. 1, 2017), executive agencies have promulgated 39 deregulatory actions with quantified estimates against five regulatory measures that impose costs, under the rubric created by EO 13,771 and the administration’s subsequent guidance document on the matter. These rules combine for net annual savings of roughly $1.2 billion. This means that agencies have thus far surpassed the administration’s cumulative goal for FY 2018 of $687 million in net annual savings. In fact, according to the administration’s latest Unified Agenda, agencies are on track to roughly double that goal.

Click here to view AAF’s examination of the administration’s progress under the “one-in, two-out” executive order through the end of Fiscal Year 2017.

State of Major Obama-Era Initiatives

Based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the Affordable Care Act has imposed costs of $52.9 billion in final state and private-sector burdens and 176.9 million annual paperwork hours.

Since passage, the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation has produced more than 82.9 million final paperwork burden hours and imposed $38.9 billion in direct compliance costs.

Total Burdens

Since January 1, the federal government has published $3.5 billion in net costs (despite $4.7 billion in net savings from final rules) and new paperwork burdens amounting to 1.7 million hours (however, this includes 456,655 hours cut under final rules). Click here for the latest Reg Rodeo findings.