Accessing Federal Executive, Legislative and Regulatory Information

Keeping to our theme of “Sunshine Week”, this post will focus on getting federal executive, legislative and regulatory information.

The Public Papers of the President is your one stop shop for recent Presidential information going back to the Presidency of Ronald Regan. The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) began publishing the Public Papers of the Presidents series in 1957 as an official publication of United States Presidents’ public writings, addresses, and remarks (1 CFR 10). For legal researchers, Presidential Executive Orders would be of most interest.

Each Public Papers volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. In instances when the release date differs from the date of the document itself, that fact is shown in the textnote.

Federal Regulations can be found on the eCFR website, which is usually current to within the last few days. The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) annual edition contains the final versions of the CFR for each year going back to 1996. The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations (as well as executive orders and other presidential documents).

Congress.gov is your one stop shopping for everything related to the US Congress including bills, resolutions, public laws, the US code, and the Congressional Record.