"Pythagorean theorem: 24 words
The Lord's prayer: 66 words
Archimedes' Principle: 67 words
The Ten Commandments: 179 words
The Gettysburg Address: 286 words
The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words
U.S. regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words."
Two excellent guides are Federal Regulations from the University at California Santa Barbara Library.
and one issued by the Michigan State University Libraries.
The General Services Administration gateway provides access to the Regulatory Information Service Center. You will find the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions and the Regulatory Plan via the RISC home page. The Agenda is issues in April and October providing advance notice of proposed rules
The Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs focuses on cost - benefit analysis.
Regulations.gov is a
website allowing individuals to comment on regulations from more than 160 agencies and departments that are open
for comment. The full text of proposed regulations is available at this
site. Updated each business day. Good search options.
The Federal Regulatory Directory (JK 6 .F43) by CQ, 1979- , is a comprehensive directory of information and sources on the regulatory activities of about 100 regulatory agencies. It is arranged by subject and agency and is issued every other year. Includes information resources, organizational charts, and congressional committees with regulatory oversight as well as historical and current overview of the regulatory process. Good subject and personnel indices.
Both A Guide to Federal Agency Rule-making 1991 (Y3.Ad6:R86/991) and the The Federal Register: what it is and how to use it (Doc KF 70 .A2 U58 or AE 2.108:F31/) provide useful introductions. On the web, The FAQ for the Federal Register is useful as is How to Use the Federal Register Online and the Federal Register Tutorial.
Regulations or rules are a form of delegated legislation.
Orders establish policies and set precedents which have the impact of law. Congress approves the legislation, but leaves the implementation details to executive branch agencies. Federal agencies are charged with faithful implementation and enforcement of the laws through the regulations they promulgate. These rules and regulations have the full force and effect of law when within agency authority and following correct procedures. Substantive rules do not take effect until at least 30 days after public notice. Agencies also engage in order-making or adjudication and this often has the same effect as regulations. Administrative law is one of three kinds of law with the other two being statutory law (legislation) and case law (court rulings).
Before the Federal Register, each executive branch issued its own regulations in a variety of publications. It was difficult for those beyond the agency to know which regulations were in force and their applicability. The New Deal legislation of the early 1930s created a variety of agencies which soon created a large number of regulations. There was confusion about which regulations were in effect and which had been revoked. In 1935, the Federal Register Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 15) was passed to solve this problem. The Archivist of the United States and the Government Printing Office were responsibile for this new publication. The Federal Register is a legal newspaper issued each business day by the National Archives and Records Administration to notify the public of regulations proposed and implemented by all agencies. It was not until 1937 that codification and subject access were required and the Code of Federal Regulations was created in 1939. In 1946, the Administrative Procedures Act required the publication of all proposed rule changes and a period (at least 30 days) for public comment. In the 1960s, brief explanations were added before the text of the final regulation. Agencies are required to publish in the Federal Register (FR) every six months all regulatory actions preposed or being developed. The collection of notices from all agencies is called the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. This agenda may be searched via GPO Access.
Established in 1935, the Office is located in the National Archives and Records and issues the Federal Register (fiche AE 2.106) (Doc J1 .A2) and the Code of Federal Regulations as well as several other important publications. The Office provides access to Federal regulations by filing them for public inspection (only in D.C.), publishing them in the daily Federal Register and codifying them in the Code of Federal Regulations. They have an informative website . The Office of the "Federal Register informs citizens of their rights and obligations by providing ready access to the official text of Federal laws, Presidential documents, administrative regulations, and notices, and descriptions of Federal organizations, programs and activities."
GPO Access has a useful introduction on their FR website.
The FR is an official, legal newspaper issued each business day. The GPO is the printer and the distributor. All proposed and final regulations having general applicability and legal effect must be published and a comment period must be provided. There are daily and monthly indexes.
Federal agencies are required to publish notices of proposed rules in the FRto enable citizens (and organizations) to participate in government decision-making. Detailed instructions are given on how, when, and where to comment as well as the name and phone of an agency contact person. Regulations.gov now allows comments to be submitted via the web. Any person or organization may comment in writing or at a public hearing. Some agencies will also accept email comment. The comment period varies from 30 to 90 days. When the final regulation is published, it must address notable issues raised in comments and discuss changes made in response to those comments. Thus, when the final rule is published, summary comments and responses to those comments are included. Lobbyists, organizations, and larger firms are much more likely to take advantage of this opportunity than ordinary citizens. Note that the FR updates the CFR.
The first FR issue on March 14, 1936 was only 16 pages long. This title appears daily with a monthly cumulation issued about two to three months after the current issue. Today, a typical year of FR accounts for more than 70,000 pages of administrative rules, regulations, guidelines and standards plus some court ordered refinements (about 35,000 documents). Some authorities suggest that this is the MOST IMPORTANT U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION because the regulations affect every aspect of our lives.
Each issue is divided into sections:
The FR is generally arranged by agency, and within agency into rules, proposed rules, and notices.
Proposed regulations are typically published within three working
days of receipt which is about seven days after it appears on the agency
website.
Some specific rulings, reports, notices (notices and announcements do not appear in CFR) and other agency statements appear in the Federal Register but will not appear in the CFR. Regulations first appear as proposed rules so interested individuals and organizations can respond to them. Only the final rule [without preamble or explanation] appears in the CFR. A Final Rule is legally binding when it appears in the Federal Register since the CFR is often delayed as much as 18 months. There is a separate section for Presidential documents.
Documents published in the FR as rules and proposed rules include citations to the CFR to refer readers to the CFR parts affected. Each issue of the FR includes a table of contents organized alphabetically by agency and identifying each document and its pagination. Two monthly publications provide further access. The List of CFR Sections Affected or LSA is a numerical listing of changes to the CFR and is available via GPO Access. The Federal Register Index is a cumulative subject index.
The on-line version (since January 1998) has the same table of
contents, but includes links to take users directly to the desired
document. On-line users can also search by category, subject and date
to retrieve documents from the present through 1994.
A citation to the Federal Register might be "67 FR 49264, July 30, 2002" with:
The Federal Register is widely available:
The commercial versions typically have better search engines and more access points. Several regulatory agencies, the EPA and FAA are two examples, provide text to their rules on their websites.
NARA provides a helpful tutorial devoted to the Federal Register . You may search tomorrow's FR (the documents on public inspection), today's FR, and past FRs. The past Federal Registers are available in a HTML version (January 1998-) and a text version (March 1994-). The text version includes CFR sections affected. You may also search annual indexes. A Thesaurus of Indexing Terms is also available.
Heavy users will scan the Federal Register daily using the table of contents or one of the CFR Parts Affected tables.
Sample query: What's the definition of "low cholesterol" versus "reduced cholesterol" in food packaging?
Citations identify the annual volume number and the first page where the document begins as in 58 FR 36071 = volume 58, page 36071.
The BNA Daily News reports on Lexis often translate rules into ordinary language, discuss implications and include comment from those affected.
This title is issued monthly and cumulates from January through December (the December issue is the annual cumulation). Arranged alphabetically by issuing agency. Text and summary portions often cite legislative authority for agency actions cited. Acts are generally referred to by popular name and abbreviations or acronyms. Required action keywords may be helpful. The index includes:
This index Began in 1984 and is the best hard copy index to use, especially if looking for recent rules. Uses a controlled vocabulary that allows searching by concept. There are three major parts:
Each index entry includes issuing agency, register issue date, and
document type. There is also a listing of deadlines, effective dates,
and hearings. Paper issues appear weekly, about one week after the date
of the last FR covered. Cumulates in weeks five and 26. There is a
companion fiche collection available for years 1936 through the
present. You may also search the FR and CFR via LexisNexis Congressional.
These are final or official rules of general applicability and legal effect (currently in force) codified in subject matter order. CFR organization was patterned on that of the United States Code. Since June, 1938, regulations published chronologically in FR have been organized into 50 titles or broad subject categories in the CFR. Examples include agriculture (Title 7), labor (Title 29), and public health (Title 42). The CFR is revised in staggered quarters each year with titles 1-16 on 1 January, 17-27 on 1 April, 28-41 on 1 July and 42-50 on 1 October. Title 3 is devoted to the President, although the U.S. Code database contains a more comprehensive collection of executive orders and proclamations. A full set of the Code would consist of about 200 volumes.
Each title is divided into chapters. Chapters are divided into parts and each part is divided into sections--the basic unit of the CFR. Titles may also have appendices which may be divided into sections, rules, and/or forms. Chapters are assigned to each agency responsible for relevant regulations. For example,Title 21, chapter 1 = regulations from the FDA. 42 CFR 1.2.34 = title 42, section 102, subsection 34.
The table of contents to the subparts of each CFR contain citations to Statutes at Large, United States Code, and Public Law. The Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules in the Index volume of CFR provides cross references from USC to CFR, Stat. to CFR, PL to CFR, and Presidential documents to CFR.
The index and finding aids are in a separate volume at the end.
The revision date of each volume is printed on the cover and on the
top of each even numbered page. Each year's set has a different cover
color.
There is an annual CFR Index and Finding Aids volume. LexisNexis [CIS] publishes a more detailed Index to the Code of Federal Regulations. Lexis also issues Shepard's Code of Federal Regulations Citations which includes citations to court interpretations and findings related to federal regulations.
The CFR is kept up to date by the FR. You must use both to determine the current rules, especially with the timelag of the former. Most rules published in the FR change an existing rule in CFR. Use the List of CFR Sections Affected or LSA which is a monthly cumulative list of CFR sections affected by documents published in the FR. Check all issues of LSA since the date printed in the CFR volume you are using.
To find the laws or acts associated with a particular regulation, use the "Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules" in the CFR. Arranged by U.S.C. citation, it lists rule making authority. It is found in the CFR Index and Finding Aids volume and is also available via GPO Access.
The Code is available via GPO Access. The e-CFR[GPO Access] service provides CFR sections with recent changes included. It is updated daily.
LexisNexis Congressional includes the CFR.
CIS has CFR available on fiche from 1938 to the present and it saves substantial shelf space although not especially user friendly.
The Commercial versions provide much better indexing.
LexisNexis CIS publishes a hard copy Index to the Code of Federal Regulations
which is updated quarterly. Access points include subject, new and
revised section numbers, and a separate geographic index. Indexing is
substantially improved over the GPO's. Also includes an administrative
history of the CFR.
