In the

law of the United States The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

, the ''Code of Federal Regulations'' (''CFR'') is the codification of the general and permanent

regulations Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

promulgated by the executive departments and agencies of the

federal government of the United States The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

. The CFR is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to federal regulation. The CFR annual edition is published as a special issue of the ''

Federal Register The ''Federal Register'' (FR or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the government gazette, official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every wee ...

'' by the Office of the Federal Register (part of the

National Archives and Records Administration The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

) and the Government Publishing Office. In addition to this annual edition, the CFR is published online on the Electronic CFR (eCFR) website, which is updated daily.

Background

Congress frequently delegates authority to an executive branch agency to issue regulations to govern some sphere. These statutes are called "authorizing statute" or "enabling statute" (or "authorizing legislation"). Authorizing statutes typically have two parts: (1) a substantive scope, typically using language such as "The Secretary shall promulgate regulations to ccomplish some purpose or within some scope; and (2) procedural requirements, typically to invoke rulemaking requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA, codified at ), Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA, codified at ), and several executive orders (primarily Executive Order 12866)).. A summary of the statutes, regulations, and executive orders that govern rulemaking may be found at David E. Boundy, ''The PTAB is Not an Article III Court, Part 1: A Primer on Federal Agency Rulemaking'', American Bar Ass’n, Landslide, vol. 10 no. 2 pp. 9–13 (Nov-Dec 2017
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/ref> Generally, each of these laws requires a process that includes (a) publication of the proposed rules in a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), (b) certain cost-benefit analyses, (c) request for public comment and participation in the decision-making, and (d) adoption and publication of the final rule, via the ''

''. Rulemaking culminates in the inclusion of a regulation in the Code of Federal Regulations. Such regulations are often referred to as "implementing regulations" vis-a-vis the authorizing statute.

Publication procedure

The rules and regulations are first promulgated or published in the ''Federal Register''. The CFR is structured into 50 subject matter titles. Agencies are assigned chapters within these titles. The titles are broken down into chapters, parts, sections and paragraphs. For example, 42 C.F.R. § 260.11(a)(1) would indicate "title 42, part 260, section 11, paragraph (a)(1)." Conversationally, it would be read as "forty-two C F R two-sixty point eleven a one" or similar. While new regulations are continually becoming effective, the printed volumes of the CFR are issued once each calendar year, on this schedule: *Titles 1–16 are updated as of January 1 *Titles 17–27 are updated as of April 1 *Titles 28–41 are updated as of July 1 *Titles 42–50 are updated as of October 1 The Office of the Federal Register also keeps an unofficial, online version of the CFR, the e-CFR, which is normally updated within two days after changes that have been published in the ''Federal Register'' become effective. The Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules lists rulemaking authority for regulations codified in the CFR.

List of CFR titles

Code of Federal Regulations Mid-Manhattan Library

The CFR is divided into 50 titles that represent broad subject areas: * Title 1: General Provisions * Title 2: Grants and Agreements * Title 3: The President * Title 4: Accounts * Title 5: Administrative Personnel * Title 6: Domestic Security * Title 7: Agriculture * Title 8: Aliens and Nationality * Title 9: Animals and Animal Products * Title 10: Energy * Title 11: Federal Elections * Title 12: Banks and Banking * Title 13: Business Credit and Assistance * Title 14: Aeronautics and Space (also known as the Federal Aviation Regulations) * Title 15: Commerce and Foreign Trade * Title 16: Commercial Practices * Title 17: Commodity and Securities Exchanges * Title 18: Conservation of Power and Water Resources * Title 19: Customs Duties * Title 20: Employees' Benefits * Title 21: Food and Drugs * Title 22: Foreign Relations * Title 23: Highways * Title 24: Housing and Urban Development * Title 25: Indians * Title 26: Internal Revenue (also known as the Treasury Regulations) * Title 27: Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms * Title 28: Judicial Administration * Title 29: Labor * Title 30: Mineral Resources * Title 31: Money and Finance: Treasury * Title 32: National Defense * Title 33: Navigation and Navigable Waters * Title 34: Education * Title 35: Reserved (formerly

Panama Canal The Panama Canal () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...

) * Title 36: Parks, Forests, and Public Property * Title 37: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights * Title 38: Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief * Title 39: Postal Service * Title 40: Protection of Environment * Title 41: Public Contracts and Property Management * Title 42: Public Health * Title 43: Public Lands: Interior * Title 44: Emergency Management and Assistance * Title 45: Public Welfare * Title 46: Shipping * Title 47: Telecommunication * Title 48: Federal Acquisition Regulations System * Title 49: Transportation * Title 50: Wildlife and Fisheries

History

The Federal Register Act originally provided for a complete compilation of all existing regulations promulgated prior to the first publication of the ''Federal Register'', but was amended in 1937 to provide a codification of all regulations every five years. The first edition of the CFR was published in 1938. Beginning in 1963 for some titles and for all titles in 1967, the Office of the Federal Register began publishing yearly revisions, and beginning in 1972 published revisions in staggered quarters. On March 11, 2014, Rep.

Darrell Issa Darrell Edward Issa ( ; born November 1, 1953) is an American businessman and politician serving as the U.S. representative for California's 48th congressional district. He represented the 50th congressional district from 2021 to 2023. A memb ...

introduced the Federal Register Modernization Act (H.R. 4195; 113th Congress), a bill that would revise requirements for the filing of documents with the

Office of the Federal Register The Office of the Federal Register is an office of the United States government within the National Archives and Records Administration. The Office publishes the ''Federal Register'', ''Code of Federal Regulations'', '' Public Papers of the Presi ...

for inclusion in the ''Federal Register'' and for the publication of the ''Code of Federal Regulations'' to reflect the changed publication requirement in which they would be available online but would not be required to be printed. The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) strongly opposed the bill, arguing that the bill undermines citizens' right to be informed by making it more difficult for citizens to find their government's regulations. According to AALL, a survey they conducted "revealed that members of the public, librarians, researchers, students, attorneys, and small business owners continue to rely on the print" version of the ''Federal Register''. AALL also argued that the lack of print versions of the ''Federal Register'' and ''CFR'' would mean the 15 percent of Americans who do not use the internet would lose their access to that material. The House voted on July 14, 2014, to pass the bill 386–0. However, the bill failed to come to a vote in the Senate, and died upon the start of the 114th Congress.

Activity and changes over time

The Code of Federal Regulations is a dynamic document with many changes and edits over time; however, tracking the edits and their impact is difficult. Simple counts of the number of rules, words, or pages is insufficient.

Notes

References

* * *

U.S. Code The United States Code (formally The Code of Laws of the United States of America) is the official Codification (law), codification of the general and permanent Law of the United States#Federal law, federal statutes of the United States. It ...

) from Cornell LII
''Code of Federal Regulations''
(cross-referenced to

) from GovRegs
Sources and Tools to the ''Code of Federal Regulations''
free and commercial from LLSDC.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Code Of Federal Regulations Publications of the United States government