Code of Federal Regulations
The C.F.R. is the topical arrangement of regulations in force in the United States. Print volumes of the current C.F.R. volumes are located in the Law General Collection at KF 70.A3 (Level 3). The C.F.R. is availale electronically from a number of sources:
A regulation in the C.F.R. will have a note following the text to indicate when the regulation was last amended. These are references to the Federal Register (FR). By retrieving these Federal Register pages, it is possible to review the agnecy's statement of purpose for the regulation and the summary of comments received, and whether these comments were adopted as part of the regulation text.
The Federal Register is the official daily publication of rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies. The Federal Register also contains executive orders and other presidential documents. Print copies of the Federal Register for the current 2 years can be found in Law General Collection at KF 70. A2 (Level 3). There are many free and fee-based electronic sources for accessing the Federal Register.
State agency regulations are found in each state's regulatory code. These codes are generally accessible through state agency websites, state legal websites, through resources such as Westlaw, Lexis Advance, and Bloomberg Law, and in print. State codes are generally structured like the Code of Federal Regulations and are searched in a similar fashion.
When updating the state codes, the use of a register similar to the Federal Register is used. These registers are often published bi-weekly and are also available online or in print.
Tracking the history of a state regulation is, in many instances, very similar to tracking the history of a federal regulation. Following the text of the regulation, there will be a note indicating when the regulation was amended. These notes will indicate pages within the state's register. Researchers looking up each of the register entries cited to will be able to track the history of the regulation from creation to present and often locate information such as the agency's purpose for the regulation.