Federal Regulations: Overview

Administrative regulations are promulgated by government agencies under the authority delegated by Congress. For more information about federal regulations and agency's rulemaking power, see the Treatise Finder page on Administrative Law.

There was basically no uniform and systematic governmental publication of federal regulations and rules before 1935. The only attempt from the Federal government to publish administrative rules and regulations was the Official Bulletin of the United States, which covers state papers, executive orders, proclamations, addresses and regulations issued by agencies from May 1917 to March 1919.

As an unintended outcome of a landmark Supreme Court case Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388 (1935), Congress passed the Federal Register Act in 1935, which requires Federal government publish all the administrative rules and regulations, Presidential proclamations and executive orders and any other documents that have "general applicability and legal effect" in the Federal Register. Federal Register was then first published in 1936. Two years later, the annual codification of Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, was first published. 

This guide was created and updated by Michigan Law Reference Librarians.