If the federal gridlock over the “fiscal cliff” has you doubting the ability of the government to get anything important done, comfort yourself with the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (yes, that’s “CALM”) Act. Passed into law in December 2010 but now mandatory as of Thursday, the CALM Act directs the Federal Communications Commission to require television advertisements to be no louder than the programs during which they appear.

And unlike many federal regulations that are derided as too long and complex for U.S. business to properly implement (a common complaint about health care reform legislation and the U.S tax code, for example), the CALM Act lays out its rules, waiver information, and definitions for broadcasters in a terse page and a half [PDF].