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Research as a Process: Regulations Research

Introduction

Rulemaking is the process of creating regulations, which are statements by agencies that have the force of law. The authority to regulate is granted by Congress, and many laws passed by Congress give federal agencies flexibility to decide how best to implement the laws.

Publication of Federal Regulations

A. Federal Register

The Federal Register provides a uniform system for publishing presidential documents, regulatory documents with general applicability and legal effect, proposed and final regulations, notices, and documents required by statute to be published. Proposed and final regulations appear first in the Federal Register.

  • GovInfo (1936 - ) Browse by date or search full-text. Available in PDF format
  • FederalRegister.gov  (1994 - )
    Filter search results by agency, topic (C.F.R. indexing terms), or type of document. Search by index. Available in PDF format.
  • Regulations.gov (current)
    Find proposed regulations by keyword, agency, or type of document. Available in PDF format.
  • Federal Register (Lexis) (1936 - )
    Browse by date or search full-text. Available in PDF format. 
  • Federal Register (Westlaw) (1936 - )
    Search full-text
  • HeinOnline (1936 - ) 
    Browse by date, retrieve by citation, search by index, or search full-text. Available in PDF format. 

B. Code of Federal Regulations

The Code of Federal Regulations is an annual codification of the rules published in the Federal Register. The C.F.R. is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to federal regulation. 

 

State Administrative Regulations

Online access to state materials varies widely. Georgetown University Law Library has created state research guides for information about individual jurisdictions.

Ohio

In Ohio, Baldwin’s Ohio Administrative Code (OAC) arranges state regulations by subject.  Baldwin’s OAC is published by West, is annotated, and is updated by pocket parts.  In between pocket parts, the Ohio Monthly Record publishes regulations in chronological order.  See a sample page from the OAC below.

Finding Administrative Decisions

Administrative agencies are typically charged with enforcing the rules they promulgate. In this enforcement capacity, an agency may issue a variety of formal and informal adjudicative materials, including guidance, opinions, rulings, memoranda, orders, directives, decisions, or arbitrations. Unlike federal rules, there is no single source for accessing all adjudicative materials, and researchers may need to review a variety of resources to find a particular document, if indeed it was published and made publicly available.

 

Current administrative decisions and materials are frequently published to the website of a federal agency. Other sources of administrative materials (with examples) are:

  • Agency-specific reporters (e.g., Environmental Administrative Decisions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
  • Looseleaf services 
  • U.S. Code Service (annotated U.S. Code published by LexisNexis; contains references to federal agency decisions)
  • Subscription electronic databases

Understanding regulation citations

A four-part citation format tells you where to find a regulation being cited:

Title/Volume Publication Section/Page Date
10 C.F.R. §719.30 (2020)
84 Fed. Reg. 14,264 (April 10, 2019)

 

When consulting the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), it's important to pay attention to the date at the end of the citation. Make sure you are looking at the appropriate version of the code.

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