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Federal Register

One great source of federal administrative and executive information is the Federal Register.  The Federal Register was created by the Federal Register Act of 1935 (49 Stat. 500) and is published daily by the Government Printing Office.  Executive orders, administrative regulations and rules must be printed in the Federal Register to be legally effective.  The Federal Register contains the following documents:

• Presidential documents including approved agency reorganization plans, presidential proclamations, executive orders, and other documents which the president deems important.

• Every document issued by an administrative authority which is considered to have general applicability and legal effect.  This includes documents that set procedures or priorities; grant authority, privileges or rights; or impose an obligation on any particular group of individuals.  Final and proposed rules and regulations fall within this classification.

• Any other document which an act of Congress requires to be published.

• Any other document which the Director of the Federal Register selects for publication.

Many documents published in the Federal Register are also published elsewhere.  For instance, final regulations can be found in both the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).  LexisNexis also compiles many documents published in the Federal Register and puts them in separate databases for ease of use.  An example of this is SEC Decisions, Orders & Releases which contain Securities and Exchange documents that are published in the Federal Register.

The Federal Register is most useful in finding information that is not published elsewhere.  Some of the information published in the Federal Register that may not be published elsewhere includes the following:

• Descriptive statements on agency organization

• Proposed rules

• Agency policy statements in connection with the adoption of certain rules

• Many rules and regulations which are outside the scope of the CFR

• Rules which have been appealed

• Changes in rules which have been made and then modified before the annual CFR is published

LexisNexis provides quick access to the Federal Register from the main search page.  A link to the Federal Register is included under Federal Legal - U.S.

Several segments are available when searching the Federal Register.  You can use segments either separately or together to help narrow your search.  Some of the most common segments available in the Federal Register are the following:

• Action – the type of action being taken by the document, such as a final rule, proposed rule, or notice

• Agency – the name of the agency that is promulgating a particular document

• CFR – the title and part of the CFR affected by the proposed or final regulation

• Cite – the cite to the Federal Register

• Date – the date the document is published in the Federal Register

• Heading – a group segment that includes the agency, the CFR title and part, the title of the document, and the type of document

• Number – contains all identifying numbers associated with the document

For additional information on searching the Federal Register see the Federal Register article in the LexisNexis Knowledge Base.  For additional information on searching segments, see Segment (Field) Searching.