CHAPTER 5 FEDERAL ADMINISTRATIVE RESEARCH

• Jurisdiction: North Carolina

Chapter 5 FEDERAL ADMINISTRATIVE RESEARCH

A. ADMINISTRATIVE LAW ORGANIZATION

The administrative function of the federal government has by tradition been relegated to a status below that of judicial decisions and federal statutes. This is due in large measure to the fact that the agencies responsible for administering federal laws derive their authority through delegation of power from either the President or Congress. However, the growth of federal authority, in the form of increasingly complex federal statutes and executive functions, has made it necessary for anyone doing legal research to understand that whenever specific implementation of the law is at issue, it is necessary to find and update all relevant administrative materials.

These materials take many forms, depending upon their purpose. The President's office, for example, issues executive orders and proclamations that affect the function and organization of administrative agencies. Those agencies issue licenses, orders, opinions, decisions, and, probably most important, rules and regulations that articulate the means by which federal laws are enforced. Because federal rules and regulations generally have the greatest impact of all administrative functions, this chapter will focus on the complex process of how they are published and updated. Like federal statutes, these rules and regulations do not exist in a vacuum, and their enforcement depends upon the federal courts and administrative agencies for interpretation. All research into federal rules and regulations will, as a result, include the extra steps of finding any interpretive cases. To explain this process, it is best to begin with the official method by which federal rules and regulations are published.

[1] Official Sources

In order for any federal rule or regulation to take effect, it must first be published in the Federal Register. Produced by the Government Printing Office, the Federal Register is issued daily except for Saturday, Sunday, and holidays. Analogous to the United States Statutes at Large, it contains rules and regulations ultimately arranged by the title and part numbers of the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.), which will be discussed below. Each issue of the Federal Register contains an index of that day's changes in rules and regulations, as well as a cumulative list of all changes from the beginning of the month forward to that day. At the end of each month a separate pamphlet index appears, followed ultimately by an annual index. Daily issues of the Federal Register are available in print and online through the Government Printing Office Federal Digital System known as FDsys (fdsys/browse/collection).

After a rule or regulation appears in the Federal Register, it is incorporated into the C.F.R., arranged in 50 titles similar, but not identical to, the U.S.C. Each title is divided into chapters which usually bear the name of the issuing agency. Each chapter is further subdivided into parts covering specific regulatory areas. An index, issued annually, is contained in a separate volume entitled C.F.R. Index and Finding Aids, which has been criticized as too general in its classification of subject terms. Published annually, the C.F.R. is issued at quarterly intervals as follows:

Titles 1 through 16 published as of January 1st
Titles 17 through 27 published as of April 1st
Titles 28 through 41 published as of July 1st
Titles 42 through 50 published as of October 1st

Each title contains all regulations still in force, incorporating those that took effect during the preceding 12 months and deleting those revoked. The C.F.R. is accessible in print and online through FDsys by selecting the Code of Federal Regulations from the Collections menu of the Advanced Search page (gpo.gov.fdsys/browse/collection). The GPO offers an unofficial version of the C.F.R. known as the e-CFR (http://www.ecfr.gov), also accessible through FDsys with the C.F.R. link. The value of this tool is its daily update feature...