The Mercatus Center has launched a new web app, RegData:

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is proud to announce the launch of a breakthrough database that provides a dramatically improved measure of the federal regulatory burden.

RegData is the first database to count the actual number of restrictions in the Code of Federal Regulations, as opposed to the former method of simply counting total pages. The interactive tool enables a far more focused view of the regulatory burden by measuring the growth of regulation by industry. While previous methods provided an idea of the growth of overall regulation, they told nothing about how those regulations affected specific sectors in the economy.

Here are the results in looking at the growth in the total number of regulations since 1997:

Mercatus Center RegData: All Regulatory Restrictions, 1997-2010

In 1997, there were 834,949 instances of the words "may not", "must", "prohibited", "required" and "shall" in the Federal Register, which coincide with each single rule implemented by the U.S. federal government.

By 2010, that number had risen to 1,001,153, an increase of 16.6% in 13 years. Or if you prefer, an average rate of increase of 12,808 per year.

For the preceding 208 years, going back to 1789, the average rate of increase of regulations in the U.S. was just 4,013 per year.

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17 Comments So Far
kcaffrey Wrote: Oct 22, 2012 8:13 PM
EPA is killing the energy sector right know with regulations that are putting coal out of business. The EPA was not formed until 1973 or so and since then it has cost the country at least 2 trillion in lost jobs, higher costs at the pump, endangered bugs so we cannot use the land. And This clown Mr. Chu who heads EPA rides a bicycle and hopes to pump gass up to six dollars a barrel so Americans can't drive as much. Add all the other agencies and you have a candy store of billions that can be saved by the federal government and allow business to do business.
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bguisto Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 9:47 PM
Obama claims the Bush years were some kind of Ayn Rand fantasy. However, this chart shows how regulations just took off after Bush's election. Looks like we will look back on this as the Bush/Obama years.
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Polly1 Wrote: Oct 22, 2012 10:53 AM
Unfortunately, we really need to see the years pre-Bush in order to say that regulations "took off after Bush's election." It's quite possible that 1998-1999 was merely an anomaly and that regulations were growing quite quickly even before Bush. An "average rate of increase" that goes back to 1789 is probably misleading. The bureaucrats most certainly gained much regulation-proficiency well after that time. Who knew back then that Americans would be such sheep that they wouldn't even complain when their toilet water-usage capacity was regulated from D.C.
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coveyrise Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 9:28 AM
What this really amounts to is the Government's failed attempt to exact Fairness on Society when in reality the Free Market does that automatically. If someone sells you and inferior product you simply don't buy from them again and in short order they go away. While it has been good for the American Society to protect us against contaminated foods and dangerous drugs many of our regulations were never needed to begin with. Vehicle gas mileage regulations being a good example. People are quite capable of deciding what type of vehicle best suits their needs.
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coveyrise Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 9:38 AM
Obama's new 54.5 mpg standard by 2025 is a good example of a new regulation that is likely to backfire. Right now light trucks account for a significant portion of total US Auto Sales. In order to have an "Average MPG of 54.5" that will mean that a lot of passenger vehicles will have to achieve mpg ratings of nearly 70 mpg. So unless you are interested in driving around in an aluminum beer can with a weed-eater engine in it this isn't likely to happen. IF it does we will have dictated he most dangerous cars ever built.
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Snarkasterous1 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 11:31 AM
covey-

Agree fully. But, take heart - there is NO CHANCE - NONE - that Obozo's absurd CAFE standards will have a significant impact on the automobiles available in America. Even Obozo knows this. The whole thing was a cheap, tawdry political trick to stroke the libbie environmental fantasists for whom feeling good about themselves is the important outcome. Actual results, as they say, may vary.

Count on this....either Obozo gets voted out in a few weeks (oh please, oh PLEASE!) in which case the adult leadership will kill this joke of a regulation. OR, if Obozo is granted another four years in which to damage our country, the patent absurdity of this dreamlike 54.5 mpg standard will, ultimately, result in its (very hush-hush)
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Snarkasterous1 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 11:35 AM
....repeal.

Another favority libbie approach would be to simply grant so many exemptions, extensions, special dispensations, and other carve-outs, that the whole thing won't have any impact....

...other than, of course, libbies' convictions that they're nuanced, "care more" about the planet, and are REALLY REALLY smart, of course.

At its core, the Obozo CAFE standard, were it to actually be met (which it WILL NOT, period) requires one or both of the following:
- A HUGE TECHNOLOGICAL LEAP forward in a VERY mature technology (the internal combustion engine)
- Americans giving up the vehicles they've preferred for over a half-century

Thinking adults (i.e., conservatives) can judge for themselves how likely one or both are.
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oldervoter68 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 2:08 PM
I think what might happen is that each of the car makers will add horses and buggies back to the fleets. Think of what that would do for fuel efficiency!!!!
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Polly1 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 7:37 PM
And FINALLY bring back the buggy-whip industry!!!
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PaleoPatriot Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 9:11 AM
I have a theory about why Cass Sunstein (Obama's Czar of Regulation) resigned from the White House and went back to Harvard..

He finished his assignment early.
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Greg1084 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 8:37 AM
Time to eliminate federal regulation of industry and send it back to the states.
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LOIS44 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 8:22 AM
This is what we the people have allowed to happen by NOT paying attention to what our "dear leaders" have been doing to us. They hire family and friends for federal & state jobs, and let them run rampage writing rules and regulations to justify otherwise do nothing jobs. The more pages they write the more money they need to hire more family and friends who will retire and live on the taxpayers dime the rest of their useless life. Congress does NOT have to follow the same rules as the general population, and as the health care bill proves, they don't even have to read it. They just sign it, add enough money (borrowed from China) to pay for it, and go on to the next boondoggle. We need to fire them all and start from scratch.
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poorgrandchildren.com2 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 7:27 AM
When a simple majority can take rights away from the minority in the ballot box, the result is disastrous. This database documents one of the disasters caused by democracy--an explosive growth of fascism.

God save our not-a-living-document Constitution and our not-a-democracy republic.
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poorgrandchildren.com2 Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 7:04 AM
The motto of American fascists, "There ought to be a law..."
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Doug Rodrigues Wrote: Oct 21, 2012 5:16 AM
The problem with bureaucrats is that they always find ways to "justify" their un-needed jobs. Inventing new regulations is one way to do that.
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