Policy Record

7 of 7 overlay dives on this record

The six universal dives are asked of every subject at this tier. This is not one of them. It exists because of one thing this subject has been — office-holder — and a subject who has not been that never gets this page. That is why this record has 7 overlay dives to write rather than a number every record shares. All six base dives were written first, and that ordering is a rule rather than a habit: an overlay dive published on its own is a page about the part of someone chosen by whoever built it.

Third run of this dive, and the only one that can compare a president with himself. The two-window hazard the second build uncovered is stated here as a standing warning rather than a lesson one page happened to learn.

The six base dives and the other 6 overlay dives are listed on the full record.

1.5%

largest gap between the two terms

On significant rules — 1,537 then 1,514

0.2%

gap on final rules

14,505 then 14,535, across a change of Senate control

of these rules struck after the term ended

Seven of them within three months

disapprovals passed both chambers, none enacted

114th Congress — checked resolution by resolution

rules described on this page

It counts them; it does not weigh them

A comparison only this record can make

The only record here that can be set against itself

Two complete terms, measured the same way: 14,505 final rules then 14,535; 1,537 significant then 1,514; 9,921 proposed then 9,777. The largest of those gaps is 1.5%. Between them sit a midterm election that changed control of the Senate, a different set of agency heads, and four years.

Final rules0.2% apart

First term14,505

Second term14,535

Significant rules1.5% apart

First term1,537

Second term1,514

Proposed rules1.5% apart

First term9,921

Second term9,777

Each measure on its own scale, both terms drawn against it. Totals are the sum of two two-year halves — the Federal Register reports at most 10,000 documents per query and both terms exceed that.

Reading it

Every other comparison on this tier is one president against another, and every one of them carries party, era and personality along with it. This one carries none of that: the same person, the same office, a different Congress. The output barely moves. Whatever drives the volume of federal rulemaking, this pair suggests it is not mainly who is in the building — and no other record at this tier can show that, because no other has two finished terms.

The second of seven overlay dives on the full record, and the third run of this dive across the tier — after Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The disapproval table now appears on all three, meaning something different on each: an instrument used, a set of rules defended, and here a set of rules struck.