A single proposed rule out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) punctuated an otherwise mundane week in rulemaking activity. The DHS proposal regarding “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds” would impose nearly $1.3 billion in total new costs – primarily from increased reporting requirements. The seven other rulemakings with quantifiable economic effects produced only $41 million in total net costs. Between both proposed and final rules last week, agencies published roughly $1.3 billion in new costs, and increased paperwork by nearly 1.5 million hours. The per capita regulatory burden for 2018 is negative $28.39.

REGULATORY TOPLINES

• New Proposed Rules: 35
• New Final Rules: 51
• 2018 Total Pages of Regulation: 51,541
• 2018 Final Rules: -$9.3 Billion
• 2018 Proposed Rules: -$544.6 Billion

The DHS Inadmissibility proposed rule seeks to tighten the criteria for determining the admissibility status of immigrants based upon their utilization of public benefits. The primary direct costs would come from the increased documentation affected individuals would need to file to demonstrate that they and/or their family members are not likely to become a “public charge” (and thus inadmissible). These new requirements amount to 1.5 million hours of new paperwork with approximately $82 million in commensurate costs, annually. DHS also estimates that this could also result in a $19.3 billion reduction in federal transfer payments as affected individuals forgo accepting such benefits to avoid the “public charge” designation.

TRACKING REGULATORY MODERNIZATION

The new regulatory budget “caps” under Executive Order (EO) 13,771 for Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 are still forthcoming, and there were no final rules under EO 13,771 that included a quantified cost or savings estimate last week. So far into FY 2019, there has been one deregulatory action against zero regulatory actions (per the rubric created by EO 13,771 and the administration’s subsequent guidance document) with quantified annual savings of roughly $58,000. Including both FY 2018 and FY 2017, EO 13,771 actions have cumulatively produced roughly $2.2 billion in net annual savings to date.

STATE OF MAJOR OBAMA-ERA INITIATIVES

Based on total lifetime costs of the regulations, the ACA 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 $553.9 billion in net cost savings (with $9.3 billion in net savings from final rules) and paperwork burdens amounting to roughly 6.1 million hours (including 8.3 million hours of paperwork reduced under final rules). Click here for the latest Reg Rodeo findings.

This week also represents something of a milestone. The American Action Forum’s Reg Rodeo project has included rules from present day through 2005. As of this past week, we have officially logged more than 5,000 final rules. Please feel free to further explore all of our findings here.