All editions of the Unified Agenda through the spring 2007 edition were published in their entirety in the Federal Register. Beginning with the fall 2007 edition, the Agenda published in the Federal Register is limited, in general, to agency regulatory flexibility agendas federal register and The Regulatory Plan. The final rules promulgated by a federal agency and published in the Federal Register are ultimately reorganized by topic or subject matter and re-published (or “codified”) in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is updated annually. The table of contents at the beginning of every Federal Register is organized alphabetically by agency. On GPO’s Govinfo.gov, tables of contents with links to documents are available for issues published starting January 1, 1994.

Federal Register

The full text of the Federal Register can be searched via the Government Publishing Office’s govinfo, or through the National Archives’ own web site, federalregister.gov. Federal depository libraries within the U.S. also receive copies of the text, either in paper or microfiche format. The official publication of materials released by the White House Press Secretary and Executive Clerk. General and permanent rules published in the Federal Register and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations. Link Service – Click here to easily construct links to an FR document if you know the FR Doc Number or volume and page numbers. Citation Search – Click here to retrieve a single FR document in PDF format if you know the Year (Volume) and Page Number of the document.

The Unified Agenda (also known as the Semiannual Regulatory Agenda), published twice a year (usually in April and October) in the Federal Register, summarizes the rules and proposed rules that each Federal agency expects to issue during the next six months. Documents are held in confidence until they are filed for public inspection at least one business day before publication in the Federal Register. OFR maintains a List of Documents on Public Inspection which includes a short description of these documents and the date they will appear in the Federal Register. Federal agencies are required to publish notices of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register to enable citizens to participate in the decision making process of the Government. The online edition of the Federal Register on this site is issued under the authority of the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register as the official legal equivalent of the paper and microfiche editions (44USC4101 and 1CFR5.10).

• Public Inspection Documents is a list of documents that are available for you to review before they are printed in the Federal Register.
• In this category are general policy statements and interpretations of agency regulations.
• The National Archives website includes the Documents Drafting Handbook, which gives Federal agencies guidance and examples for drafting Federal Register documents.
• To help federal agencies manage their dockets, the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) was launched in 2005 and is the agency side of regulations.gov.
• On August 1, 2011, the Federal Register announced a new application programming interface (API) to facilitate programmatic access to the Federal Register content.
• The API is fully RESTful, utilizing the HATEOAS architecture with results delivered in the JSON format.

GPO Describes Federal Register Publications

The Unified Agenda, as published in the Federal Register, is available on a separate page on GovInfo. Public Inspection Documents is a list of documents that are available for you to review before they are printed in the Federal Register.

• The Unified Agenda, as published in the Federal Register, is available on a separate page on GovInfo.
• The purpose of these notices is to give interested persons an opportunity to participate in the rule making prior to the adoption of the final rules.
• These corrections are prepared by the Office of the Federal Register to correct typographical or clerical errors made in the printing of the Federal Register.
• The table of contents at the beginning of every Federal Register is organized alphabetically by agency.
• The Federal Register is the official daily publication for Presidential Documents, Executive Orders, proposed, interim, and final rules and regulations, and notices by Federal Agencies, as well as notices of hearings, decisions, investigations, and committee meetings.

Unofficial (ACFR-endorsed) Format

Both proposed and final government rules are published in the Federal Register. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (or “NPRM”) typically requests public comment on a proposed rule and provides notice of any public meetings where a proposed rule will be discussed. The public comments are considered by the issuing government agency, and the text of a final rule along with a discussion of the comments is published in the Federal Register. Any agency proposing a rule in the Federal Register must provide contact information for people and organizations interested in making comments to the agencies and the agencies are required to address these concerns when it publishes its final rule on the subject. Documents published in the Federal Register as rules and proposed rules include citations to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to refer readers to the CFR parts affected. The CFR contains the complete and official text of agency regulations organized into fifty titles covering broad subject areas.

The Unified Agenda is compiled by the Regulatory Information Service Center, a component of the U.S. General Services Administration, in cooperation with the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Applicable agendas are then published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the Federal Register. The Regulatory Information Service Center assigns a Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) to identify each regulatory action listed in the Unified Agenda. Presidential Documents Section- This section of the Federal Register contains documents signed by the President and submitted to the Office of the Federal Register for publication. Presidential documents include Proclamations and Executive Orders, as well as other documents such as determinations, letters, memorandums, and reorganization plans.

Sample Federal Register URLs

Every morning during business hours (updating on business days to coincide with the GPO publishing schedules), HeinOnline is adding the previous day’s content, making it fully browseable and fully searchable. GovPulse.us,8 a finalist in the Sunlight Foundation’s Apps for America 2,9 provided a Web 2.0 interface to the Federal Register, including sparklines of agency activity and maps of current rules, but is no longer available. For volumes after 1993 through today’s edition of the Federal Register, please see govinfo from the U.S. On August 1, 2011, the Federal Register announced a new application programming interface (API) to facilitate programmatic access to the Federal Register content. The API is fully RESTful, utilizing the HATEOAS architecture with results delivered in the JSON format.

When is it published?

The documents are compiled annually in title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Table of Contents and Preliminary Pages- This section of the Federal Register contains a comprehensive alphabetical listing by agency name of all documents in the issue. Under each agency, the documents are arranged by classification–Rules, Proposed Rules, or Notices. Each entry includes the page number where the document begins and a brief description of the document. View regular and special document filing lists for future publication on the dates listed (usually the next day).

Additionally, this section includes documents that have no regulatory text and do not amend the CFR, but either affect the agency’s handling of its regulations or are of continuing interest to the public in dealing with an agency. In this category are general policy statements and interpretations of agency regulations. These documents have the CFR headings (title and part), but do not contain any codified language.

In recognition of the public’s right to the fullest possible information about the Federal decision-making process, the Government in the Sunshine Act requires that meetings of Government agencies be open to the public, with certain specified exceptions. The Act also requires that public announcement be made in the Federal Register of the time, place, and subject matter of the meeting, the name and telephone number of the agency official to contact for more information, and whether the meeting is open or closed to the public. In some cases an agency includes a docket number, which identifies the document within the agency’s internal filing system. The OFR prepares the Federal Register for publication in partnership with the Government Publishing Office (GPO). GPO distributes the Federal Register in paper, on microfiche, and online as PDF files.

Instructions for filing comments and the date by which comments must be filed are provided. If Presidential Documents appear in the Federal Register they are listed in alphabetical order in the Contents under the heading “Presidential Documents”. Appearing at the end of the Contents is a list of separate parts published in the issue, if applicable. The documents appearing in the separate part are also listed under the agency in the table of contents. Please note the differences in searching and browsing the more recent volumes (Volume 60 to present) versus the older, digitized volumes (Volume 59 and older).