Biden's Record-Breaking Count of Pages in the 2024 Federal Register Surpasses Previous Highs
It's New Year's Eve and everyone's excited for the annual review of the 2024 year-end Federal Register. This traditional event highlights the flow of federal rules and regulations as we say goodbye to 2024.
Few might care, but here's the deal: the 2024 Federal Register contains a whopping 107,262 pages and 3,248 final rules and regulations. Check it out for yourself:
As we turn the page on 2024 and bid farewell to the Joe Biden era and the return of Donald Trump, it's a great chance to examine how federal agency regulatory output under Biden compares to previous administrations.
The 2024 Federal Register Closed with 107,262 Pages
The Federal Register serves as the daily storage for rules and regulations. The 2024 edition sets a new record with 107,262 pages, significantly surpassing Barack Obama's previous high of 95,894 pages.
While this total number includes a small percentage of blank and skipped pages that will be subtracted in the National Archives’ final tally, the overall picture remains the same. (My adjusted figure is slightly lower, at 107,134 pages.)
Biden's administration now has two spots in the Top Five. Though page counts are not an exact measure of regulatory burden, they do reflect regulatory enthusiasm.
Biden openly rejected Trump's regulatory reform efforts, labeling them "harmful," and instead prioritized sweeping whole-of-government initiatives on climate, equity, and economic and social policies. The Federal Register's growth under his tenure reflects this agenda.
The table below tracks page counts and rule numbers back to the first George Bush. Notable are Barack Obama's previous record of 95,894 pages in 2016, and Trump's low of "only" 61,308 pages in 2017 — the smallest count since Bill Clinton's 61,166 pages in 1993.
Despite Trump's regulatory reform efforts, his late-term Federal Register totals suffered from quirks. For example, removing rules "one-in, two-out"-style required drafting new rules to replace them due to the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act’s public notice-and-comment mechanism. Trump inadvertently expanded the Federal Register to some extent (and did have certain regulatory inclinations of his own). Additionally, 2020 saw an increase in Trump-era rules, guidance, and policy statements related to Covid-19, adding to the bulk.
Looking forward, Trump pledges to eliminate rules "10 for one" in his new term. This could potentially inflate the Federal Register again, but halting the Biden agenda should reduce the count next year to something less extreme.
One can only hope we aren't actually entering an era of a million Federal Register pages per decade.
The 2024 Federal Register Contained 3,248 Rules
Thousands of final rules and regulations populate the Federal Register each year, and their numbers since 1989 are presented in the chart above.
Biden concluded 2024 with 3,248 rules (preliminary), compared to 3,018 in 2023. While this is low in comparison, regulation can be increasingly disguised through subsidy and spending programs, procurement and contracting, public-private partnerships, various kinds of guidance documents, and simple threats. It's worth noting that back in the 1990s, having more than 4,000 rules per year was quite normal, and counts were even higher in the 70s and 80s (reaching an astounding 7,745 in 1980).
Rule counts under Trump did decrease compared to Obama levels, with 2019's 2,964 final rules marking the lowest tally since recordkeeping began in the mid-1970s. Expect a similar reduction in the new Trump term.
Beyond sheer rule counts, federal regulations contain a costlier subset deemed “significant,” many of which are increasingly concerning to small businesses and lower-level governments, whether unfunded or funded.
Of Biden's 3,248 rules finalized in 2024, 342 were deemed “significant” by agencies and the Office of Management and Budget. Among these, 770 rules affected small businesses, with 76 classified as significant. The significant legislative enactments of the past four years on infrastructure, inflation, and technology spending are already having far-reaching regulatory effects that the 119th Congress should address, especially since Biden's 2023 Modernizing Regulatory Review executive order raised the threshold for what his administration considers significant, complicating comparisons with earlier years. This executive order is likely to be struck on Trump's first day.
The 2024 Federal Register closed with 1,769 proposed rules in the pipeline, including 175 significant ones. Over 500 of these proposals will also impact small businesses, with 35 acknowledged as “significant.” Trump's freeze on this pipeline could drastically alter the regulatory landscape.
- Some people might be surprised to learn that President Biden's administration has a few entries in the Top Five for the largest Federal Register page counts, with the 2024 edition totaling 107,262 pages, surpassing President Obama's previous record of 95,894 pages in 2016.
- As we move into the new year and say goodbye to the Joe Biden era and the return of former President Trump, it's a useful moment to evaluate how federal agency regulatory output under Biden compares to previous administrations, such as Trump's 2017 low of "only" 61,308 pages.
- As we review the 2024 Federal Register, we can see that it contains a significant number of final rules and regulations, with 3,248 entries listed, and while this is lower than the number of rules in 2023, it's still a substantial amount of red tape.
- In the coming years, former President Trump has pledged to eliminate regulations "10 for one" in his new term, which could potentially increase the size of the Federal Register once again, but it remains to be seen how effectively he can halt the regulatory output of the Biden administration and achieve a significant reduction in the total number of pages.
