Last week, 1,571 new pages of regulations were published in the 2012 Federal Register, bringing the total for this year to more than 55,300 pages, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

In those pages, 76 new final rules were approved, up from 51 final rules during the shortened Labor Day holiday week.

That figure is equivalent to a new regulation being published every two hours and 13 minutes, 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

Some of the most notable regulations published include a major regulation from the EPA that sets new performance standards for petroleum refineries less than five years old and another new environmental rule regarding paper mill emissions.

The rule for paper mills in only a minor one, costing $5.9 million in capital costs and $2.1 million in recurring costs, but the major rule regarding oil refineries entails $79 million in compliance costs.

Other rules include the DEA updating its seizure and forfeiture regulations and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau establishing the Innwood Valley region in California and the Middleburg region in Virginia.

In total, 2,708 final rules have been published in the 2012 Federal Register, and if the government keeps up the pace CEI says 3,842 new rules will be published this year.

Those new rules bring the total number of pages of regulation to 55,324, with the government set to have 79,463 pages of regulations at its current pace.

Thirty-six economically significant rules published this year have combined compliance costs of more than $17.4 billion, though CEI estimates the true costs are actually higher.

Economically significant rules are those which have costs of $100 million or more per year. One was published last week.

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