Administrative law is the body of law created
by administrative agencies in the form of rules, regulations, procedures,
orders, and decisions. Agencies are given the authority for these activities
by laws enacted by Congress. The Administrative Procedure Act,
5 USC §551 et seq., establishes the basic procedural standards for
federal agencies.
This guide identifies the sources of federal agency rules, regulations,
and decisions, in print and online sources. It also describes research
techniques and tools. Some commercial sources require passwords; other
sources are UW
Restricted.
General Sources
The Regulatory Information
Service Center is designed to provide "information to the President,
Congress, agency officials, and the general public to help them better
understand and manage the regulatory process." It contains the semiannual
Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, related
documents, and links to relevant websites.
The ABA Administrative Procedure Database,
Federal
Resources, links to sources dealing with federal administrative law.
For scholarly treatments see:
- The Administrative Law Treatise (4th ed.) KF5402.D32 2002, 3 vols. at Reference Area.
Publisher information.
- Administrative Law and Practice. Westlaw: ADMLP
Administrative Law and Process in a Nutshell (5th ed.) provides a
much-abbreviated overview of administrative law. KF5402.Z9G4 2006 at
Reference Area.
Publisher information (with table of contents and index).
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Directories & Guides
The U.S. Government Manual (annual) provides overviews of
Congress, the judicial branch, and executive branch agencies and
departments. Includes historical information on changes in agency
organization.
- Print, latest edition: JK421.U57 at Reference Area & Reference Office
- Print, earlier editions: JK421.U57 at Classified Stacks
- Westlaw: US-GOVMAN
- Internet: GPO
Access
The Federal Regulatory Directory contains extensive descriptions
about individual regulatory agencies, with appendices of the Administrative
Procedure Act and the Freedom of Information Act. KF5406.A15F4 at Reference
Office, current edition
National Archives and Records Administration offers a
Federal Register Tutorial and
other
information about the Federal Register, the Code of Federal
Regulations, and the U.S. Government Manual.
A Research
Guide to the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations by the
Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC, covers history, contents and
organization; citations; the Unified Agenda; indexes; and the List of
Sections Affected.
Tracking Current Federal
Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Basic Sources, by the
Congressional Research Service, describes official and commercial sources
and services..
The Law Library of Congress's
Administrative Law Guide
covers presidential, executive branch, and agency-specific material.
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Finding Agency Regulations
Secondary Sources
Many books, articles, and Looseleaf services provide citations to or the
full-text of regulations. Consult Legal Looseleafs in Print (KF1.L44
at Reference Office) for relevant titles. Examples include:
- Federal Banking Law Reporter. KF971.5.F4 at Reference Area
- Labor Relations Reporter. KF3365 .B8 at Reference Area
- Standard Federal Tax Reporter. KF6285 .C67 at Reference Area
The Law Library's subscription to services from the Bureau of National
Affairs (BNA) covers sources on banking, employee benefits, the environment,
health care, labor, securities, and tax--all of which have substantially
regulatory components. Several commercial legal databases--RIA Checkpoint and Securities
Mosaic--contains regulations on specific subjects. See the
Legal Databases & Indexes page for
links and descriptions.
LexisNexis and Westlaw have many topical or area of practice databases
that relevant regulations. View the database directories and consult a
guide. LexisNexis has a guide to
Statutes, Regulations and Federal Legislative Research. Westlaw's
guides cover:
Commercially published annotated codes provide citations to relevant
regulations related to individual statutes.
- the U.S. Code Annotated. KF62 1927 .W45 at Reference Area.
Westlaw: USCA
- the U.S. Code Service. KF62 1972 .L38 at Reference Area.
LexisNexis:
GENFED;USCODE
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Primary Sources
The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is arranged by subject into
50 titles.
To search by agency or subject, consult one of the following indexes:
- the CFR's Index/Finding Aids volume. KF70.A3 at Reference Area
- the 4-volume West's Code of Federal Regulations: General Index.
KF70.A34 at Reference Area. Also available on Westlaw.
- the United States Code Service index to the CFR. KF62 1972 .L38
at Reference Area
- GPO Access
agency list
| The List of Sections Affected (LSA) is a tool
used to determine if a particular CFR section has been revised by later
action published in the Federal Register.
|
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To find court opinions and other sources that cite to regulations in the
CFR, consult Shepard's Code of Federal Regulations Citations, KF78.S4
at Reference Area. See
Publisher information for more details.
The Federal Register (FR) contains proposed and adopted agency
regulations as they are issued. It also includes notices of meetings,
hearings, and adjudicatory proceedings and the text of presidential
proclamations and executive orders.
- Print, last 2 years: KF70.A2 at Reference Area
- Print, earlier years: KF70.A2 at Compact Stacks
- LexisNexis:
GENFED;FR, July 1980 to date
- Westlaw: FR, July 1980 to date
- Hein
Online: vol. 1 (1936)-71 (2006).
UW Restricted
- Internet
The Unified Agenda (also known as the Semiannual Regulatory Agenda) is
published twice a year in the Federal Register. It details pending
and forthcoming regulatory actions by federal agencies.
To search by agency or subject, consult one of the following indexes:
- Print, monthly and annual indexes. last 2 years: KF70.A2 at Reference
Area
- Print, earlier years: KF70.A2 at Compact Stacks
-
Hein Online, vol. 1 (1936) to last annual index.
UW Restricted
- The National Archives has published a
list of the terms used to index Federal Register material.
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Updating Regulations
Online
Print
- Note the date of revision on the cover of the CFR volume that contains
your regulation, e.g. "Revised as of October 1, 2005."
- Check the most recent monthly List of CFR Sections Affected.
The LSAs are arranged by CFR title and section, for references to your CFR
section. If there have been any changes, the LSA will tell you the nature
of the changes and provide references to pages in the Federal Register.
Note: Because of the revision schedule, occasionally you may need to check
an older LSA pamphlet as well. The main thing is to look at the dates of
the CFR and LSA volumes to make sure you have continuous coverage from the
time your CFR regulation was last revised up until the present.
- Now go to the Federal Register. Consult the last day of each month
since the LSA pamphlet that you looked at in the previous step. There will
be a section in the back called "List of CFR Parts Affected during
[month]."
- The last step is to check the last day of the current month in the
Federal Register.
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Finding Agency Decisions
Many federal administrative agencies issue written decisions. No
comprehensive list exists. Consult the following print and online sources to
determine where particular agency decisions are found:
- University of Virginia Library,
Administrative Decisions & Other Actions links to collections of
federal administrative agency decisions on the Internet; arranged by
agency name and by subject.
- How to Find the Law, 9th ed., contains a table that lists
commercial and official titles of agency decisions. KF240.C538 1989 at
Reference Area & Reference Office
- Veronica Maclay, "Selected Sources of United States Agency Decisions,"
contains a more complete list of print sources. 16 Government Publications
Review 271-301 (1989) at Compact Stacks, shelved by title.
- Major looseleaf services also contain or cite to administrative
decisions.
- LexisNexis:
GENFED;FEDAGN. Includes decisions,
decrees and orders, memoranda, interpretive letters, opinions, bulletins,
and rulings from dozens of federal agencies. For individual agency sources, see
the LexisNexis Directory of Online Services (KF242.A1L53 at Reference
Office) or the searchable online
directory.
- Westlaw: FADMIN-ALL. Includes documents defined as orders, opinions,
decisions, policy statements, announcements, adjudications, releases,
administrative actions, letter rulings, and no-action letters; prepared by
multiple federal agencies.
For additional sources, see the Westlaw Database Directory (KF242.A1W473
at Reference Office) or the online
version.
- LLMC Digital
has scanned published sets of agency decisions, many dating from the 1940s
and earlier. Access via the catalog
as
a collection or by
individual title.
- GPO Access includes
links to a
variety of federal agency websites where recent decisions are posted,
including those from the Federal Labor Relations Authority, Merit Systems
Protection Board, National Labor Relations Board, National Mediation
Board, and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
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Updating Agency Decisions
Many federal agency decisions can be "Shepardized," just like court
opinions to discover the validity of an administrative decision and/or to
identify other cases and decisions that cite to a particular decision. Use
Shepard's on LexisNexisor or Westlaw's KeyCite, or consult one of the
specialized Shepard's citators in print in the Reference Area:
- Shepard's United States Administrative Citations. KF153.2.S5
- Shepard's Federal Occupational Safety and Health Citations.
KF3568.15.S473
- Shepard's Federal Tax Citator, 3d ed. KF6280.5.S46
- Shepard's Immigration and Naturalization Citations. KF4810.5
.S53
- Shepard's Intellectual Property Law Citations, 3d ed.
KF3093.15.S44
- Shepard's Labor Law Citations, 4th ed. KF3310.5.S5
See
Publisher Information to learn what sources are covered by these
specialized citators.
The Gallagher Law Library has a subscription to KeyCite for public
users. Ask the reference librarian on duty (or the staff at the Circulation
Desk if the reference librarian is unavailable) to enter the KeyCite
password for you.
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