The past week in regulation was something of a mixed bag. A handful of moderately costly rules from independent agencies combined with a Department of Transportation (DOT) deregulatory measure to produce a slight uptick in net costs. Between both proposed and final rules, agencies published roughly $51 million in net costs and 502,801 hours of paperwork. The per capita regulatory burden for 2018 is negative $11.67.

Regulatory Toplines

• New Proposed Rules: 38
• New Final Rules: 70
• 2018 Total Pages of Regulation: 18,512
• 2018 Final Rules: -$3.8 Billion
• 2018 Proposed Rules: -$3 Billion

Tracking Regulatory Modernization

There was one rule contributing savings towards the “regulatory budget” established under Executive Order (EO) 13,771. The DOT measure delays the implementation of a 2014 rule on “Training, Qualification, and Oversight for Safety-Related Railroad Employees,” by two years. The agency estimates that this will yield roughly $40 million in total savings ($18.6 million on an annual basis).

According to AAF analysis, since the start of FY 2018 (beginning Oct. 1, 2017), executive agencies have promulgated 34 deregulatory actions with quantified cost savings 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 $1.1 billion. This means that agencies have thus far surpassed the administration’s cumulative goal for FY 2018 of $687 million in net annual savings.

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 $6.8 billion in net costs savings ($3.8 billion from final rules) and new paperwork burdens amounting to 1.8 million hours (however, this includes 452,653 hours cut under final rules). Click here for the latest Reg Rodeo findings.