In a report last year on the regulatory burden, we mentioned the Mercatus Center’s FRASE Index, which quantifies the impact of federal regulations on industries in each state. To construct the index, the Mercatus researchers estimated the regulatory restrictions contained in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. These are terms like “shall, must, may not, prohibited, and required.” Washington ranks 30^th in the nation, meaning that federal regulations impact Washington’s economy more than they do in 20 other states.

Since publishing the FRASE Index in 2016, Mercatus has been releasing similar analyses of state-level regulations. The analysis of the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) was released in April. It finds that the industry “with the highest estimates of industry-relevant restrictions in the 2019 WAC” is professional, scientific, and technical services. (The chart below is from the report.)

Overall, the researchers find “that the 2019 WAC contains 196,028 restrictions and 17.3 million words. It would take an individual about 961 hours . . . to read the entire WAC.”

When grouping restrictions by agency rather than industry, the researchers find that the Department of Labor & Industries is associated with the most restrictions. Title 296 of the WAC (L&I) has 43,579 restrictions, title 246 (Department of Health) has 20,483 restrictions, and title 173 (Department of Ecology) has 18,844 restrictions.

For comparison, the report on Oregon’s regulations (completed in 2017) found that “the Oregon Administrative Rules contains 167,401 restrictions and roughly 14.8 million words. It would take an individual about 821 hours . . . to read the entire Oregon code.” The industry in Oregon with the most restrictions was ambulatory healthcare services.

The report on Idaho (released in 2018) found that “the 2018 IAC [Idaho Administrative Code] contains 61,848 restrictions and 5.0 million words. It would take an individual about 277 hours . . . to read the entire IAC.” (The number of restrictions in Idaho is lower now, as the Wall Street Journal reports: “Each year state lawmakers reauthorize the administrative code, but this spring, after a spat between the House and Senate, they failed to do so. The current regulations are scheduled to sunset July 1. . . . The newly revised code, posted online last week, eliminates 900 pages.” For more on the expirations, see this post by the Mercatus Center’s James Broughel.)

(The Mercatus report on California’s regulations has not yet been published.) UPDATE: Just after posting this post, the California report was published. It finds that the “2019 CCR [California Code of Regulations] contains 395,129 restrictions and 21.2 million words. It would take an individual about 1,176 hours . . . to read the entire CCR.”

Finally, as Mercatus notes,

Researchers are only beginning to understand the consequences of the massive and growing federal regulatory system on economic growth and well-being in the United States. Meanwhile, the effects of state regulation remain largely unknown. If this snapshot of Washington regulation in 2019 is a good indicator, then the states are also active regulators, suggesting that the full impact of regulation on society is far greater than that of federal regulation alone.