Administrative Law Research

Actions Taken by Federal Agencies

• Rules and regulations
• Administrative Decisions
• Advisory opinions
• Orders
• Licenses

The Federal Register Act of 1935

• Requires agencies to publish regulations.
• Prior to this, there was no systematic method for developing, publishing and enforcing regulations. Rules were published in separate publications, such as gazettes, bulletins, rulings, digests, pamphlets, notices, codes, certificates, orders, etc.

Administrative Procedure Act (APA)

• The Administrative Procedure Act (1946) requires agencies to publish proposed and final regulations
• Notice and Comment period
• Preamble includes the regulatory history
• Final regulation contains updated preamble, including responses to comments and a discussion of changes between the proposed and final regulation
• Use the Federal Register to monitor proposed and final rules, to update the CFR, and to trace the history and background of a regulation

The Federal Register

• Centralized publication of key agency documents
• Daily newspaper of the executive branch
• Published daily (federal working days) since March 14, 1936
• Paginated continuously throughout the year
• Each year's issues make up one volume
• Overall issues: chronological arrangement of regulations (like Statutes at Large)

Federal Register - Individual issue arrangement:

• Rules and Regulations (Documents with final legal effect)
• Proposed Rules (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking - NPRM)
• Notices (May affect the public but do not amend the CFR. Includes meeting notices, grant announcements/funding environmental impact statements)
• Presidential Documents (Executive Orders, Proclamations, Administrative Orders)
• Corrections (OFR or GPO typographical errors)
• Reader Aids (Contact information, FR pages and dates, CFR parts affected during the month)

The Code of Federal Regulations

• Rules and Regulations (Documents with final legal effect)
• Proposed Rules (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking - NPRM)
• Notices (May affect the public but do not amend the CFR. Includes meeting notices, grant announcements/funding environmental impact statements)
• Presidential Documents (Executive Orders, Proclamations, Administrative Orders)
• Corrections (OFR or GPO typographical errors)
• Reader Aids (Contact information, FR pages and dates, CFR parts affected during the month)

The CFR is divided into 50 titles

• First published in 1939
• Published annually in quaterly installments
• More recent updates appear in the Federal Register
• Each title (broad subject area) is divided into:
  • Chapter (Rules of individual agency)
  • Subchapter
  • Part (Rules on a single program or function)
  • Section (One provision of program/function rule