Federal agencies issue rules and regulations to implement and enforce federal laws. These rules and regulations are published by agency and subject in the Code of Federal Regulations.
This unit on Federal Regulations covers how federal regulations are published and how to find, read, and update them in print and using free websites.
When the U.S. Congress passes a federal law, it may designate an existing federal agency or create a new federal agency to enforce and implement that law. To do this, Congress gives that federal agency the duty and power to write rules and regulations. For example, Congress designated the U.S. Department of Education as the federal agency responsible for issuing regulations to implement the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Once a federal agency is given the authority to write regulations, it generally publishes proposed rules (aka regulations) with requests for public comment in the Federal Register (FR). The Federal Register is updated daily by 6 a.m. and published Monday through Friday. Once the comment period, which varies, has passed, federal agencies publish their final regulations in the Federal Register. The final rule includes:
These final regulations are organized and published by the Office of the Federal Register and Government Publishing Office (GPO) by agency and subject into parts and sections within the 50 titles of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
For example, The Department of Education regulations that implement the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) regulations are published in Title 34 (Education), parts 300 and 303 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The specific regulation that states the purposes of the Part 300 regulations is published in Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 300, section 1 (34 C.F.R. § 300.1).
§ 300.1 Purposes.The purposes of this part are— (a) To ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living; (b) To ensure that the rights of children with disabilities and their parents are protected; (c) To assist States, localities, educational service agencies, and Federal agencies to provide for the education of all children with disabilities; and (d) To assess and ensure the effectiveness of efforts to educate children with disabilities. (Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1400(d)) |
The law library maintains a copy of the print Federal Register and the current and previous versions of the official print Code of Federal Regulations. The official Federal Register (1936-present) and the official Code of Federal Regulations (Annual Edition) (1996-present) are available for free on the Government Publishing Office's (GPO's) govinfo website.
If you have access to the Code of Federal Regulations in print, you can find federal regulations by:
(1) citation;
(2) annotations to the U.S. Code;
(3) browsing the table of contents; and
(4) subject.
§ 300.1 Purposes.The purposes of this part are— (a) To ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living; (b) To ensure that the rights of children with disabilities and their parents are protected; (c) To assist States, localities, educational service agencies, and Federal agencies to provide for the education of all children with disabilities; and (d) To assess and ensure the effectiveness of efforts to educate children with disabilities. (Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1400(d)) |
Once you find one federal regulation that addresses your legal issue, you can browse the Table of Contents for other related regulations. |
34 C.F.R. § 300.17 Free appropriate public education or FAPE means special education and related services that— (a) Are provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge; (b) Meet the standards of the SEA, including the requirements of this part; (c) Include an appropriate preschool, elementary school, or secondary school education in the State involved; and (d) Are provided in conformity with an individualized education program (IEP) that meets the requirements of §§ 300.320 through 300.324. (Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1401(9)) |
The law library also maintains a current copy of the multi-volume West's Code of Federal Regulations General Index in its collection.
Proposed regulations, with requests for comments, and final regulations of federal agencies are published daily in the Federal Register. You can access the Federal Register on the GPO's govinfo website. Related Resources at the bottom of the Federal Register page in govinfo include links to an unofficial web-searchable daily edition of the Federal Register at federalregister.gov and regulations.gov for citizens to track and comment on proposed regulations.
Federal agency websites can be great resources for finding links to the federal laws they enforce and the regulations they issue to do so. For example, the U.S. Department of Education maintains a website devoted to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The IDEA website includes a Law and Policy tab, which provides a link to the regulations the department issues to implement the requirements of the IDEA..
You can find an A-Z Index of of U.S. government department and agency websites on the usa.gov website where you can also search for agencies by topic.
Some public libraries and colleges and universities provide access to annotated versions of the Code of Federal Regulations through subscriptions to Westlaw or Lexis.
For example, the Richland Library and the Greenville County library systems offer public access Westlaw to its members and the University of South Carolina subscribes to NexisUni™, formerly LexisNexis Academic.
Both subscription databases allow you to retrieve a federal regulation by citation; browse by title, part and section; and search the text of their annotated versions of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Like the official United States Code, the official print and online versions of the Code of Federal Regulations are not annotated. They provide the text of the regulations only. Unlike the United States Code, there is no print annotated version of the Code of Federal Regulations.
However, both Westlaw and Lexis annotate the Code of Federal Regulations within their online subscription databases. Some public libraries in South Carolina provide access to Westlaw for their patrons, while some South Carolina colleges and universities, including the University of South Carolina, provide access to Nexis Uni (by Lexis).
Annotations to individual regulations include relevant secondary sources (encyclopedia, books, articles) and summaries and citations to federal cases applying and interpreting that regulation.
The proper citation to a federal regulation includes that regulation's title (34), part (300), section (1) and the revision year (2019) of that Title of the Code of Federal Regulations.
For example, the regulation referenced above stating the purposes of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) would be cited as:
34•C.F.R.•§•300.1•(2019).
The entire Part 300 of Title 34 of the Code of Federal Regulations would be cited as:
34•C.F.R.•pt.•300•(2019).
The blue bullets in the citations above represent spaces.
Titles 1 -- 16 as of January 1
Titles 17 -- 27 as of April 1
Titles 28 -- 41 as of July 1
Titles 42 -- 50 as of October 1
For example. Title 34 Education is revised every year on July 1st. The revision date of each print volume of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is printed on its cover. Many libraries do not have access to the print CFR volumes; however, the Code of Federal Regulations (Annual Edition) is available for free on the GPO's govinfo website.The annual revision date appears below the listing for each title:
The Code of Federal Regulations (Annual Edition), while updated on a quarterly basis each year, can be more than 6 months behind in publication.
Any changes to a regulation listed in either the monthly List of Sections Affected (LSA) or CFR PARTS AFFECTED section of the daily Federal Register will include a page number in the current Federal Register to learn about those changes.
Unofficial versions of the CFR are more up-to-date, requiring only one step for updating a federal regulation—checking the Federal Register. This allows you to skip the List of Sections Affected (LSA). For example, the GPO's unofficial e-CFR is typically current within a few days.
As shown above, on May 13, 2020 the e-CFR database was current as of May 11, 2020. Therefore, all that was necessary to update 34 C.F.R. § 300.17 was to check under Title 34 in the May 13th Federal Register's CFR PARTS AFFECTED DURING MAY.
