In the law of the United States, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the codification of the general and permanent regulations promulgated by the executive departments and agencies of the federal government of the United States. The CFR is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to federal regulation.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970. To date, more than 100 nations around the world have enacted national environmental policies modeled after NEPA.
An environmental impact statement (EIS), under United States environmental law, is a document required by the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for certain actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment". An EIS is a tool for decision making. It describes the positive and negative environmental effects of a proposed action, and it usually also lists one or more alternative actions that may be chosen instead of the action described in the EIS. Several U.S. state governments require that a document similar to an EIS be submitted to the state for certain actions. For example, in California, an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) must be submitted to the state for certain actions, as described in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). One of the primary authors of the act is Lynton K. Caldwell.
The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on federal holidays. The final rules promulgated by a federal agency and published in the Federal Register are ultimately reorganized by topic or subject matter and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is updated quarterly.
An air defense identification zone (ADIZ) has existed since February 10, 2003, around the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area to restrict air traffic near Washington, D.C.
In administrative law, rulemaking is the process that executive and independent agencies use to create, or promulgate, regulations. In general, legislatures first set broad policy mandates by passing statutes, then agencies create more detailed regulations through rulemaking.
United States federal administrative law encompasses statutes, regulations, rules, common law rulings, and directives issued by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Executive Office of the President, that together define the extent of powers and responsibilities held by administrative agencies of the United States government. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. federal government cannot always directly perform their constitutional responsibilities. Specialized powers are therefore delegated to an agency, board, or commission. These administrative governmental bodies oversee and monitor activities in complex areas, such as commercial aviation, medical device manufacturing, and securities markets.
An Airworthiness Directive is a notification to owners and operators of certified aircraft that a known safety deficiency with a particular model of aircraft, engine, avionics or other system exists and must be corrected.
Electronic rulemaking is the use of digital technologies by government agencies in the rulemaking and decision making processes of the United States. An interdisciplinary electronic rulemaking research community has formed as a result of National Science Foundation funding under the auspices of the Digital Government Program. Groups such as the Cornell E-Rulemaking Initiative (CeRI) have been focused on researching how technologies such as Web 2.0 can help foster greater public participation in the political process, specifically, in Federal Agencies’ rulemaking.
Negotiated rulemaking is a process in American administrative law, used by federal agencies, in which representatives from a government agency and affected interest groups negotiate the terms of a proposed administrative rule. The agency publishes the proposed rule in the Federal Register and then follows the usual rulemaking procedure of soliciting public comments, which are evaluated for inclusion in the final rule.
The Administrative Law, Process and Procedure Project is a bipartisan undertaking of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. It consists of a comprehensive study of the state of administrative law, process and procedure in the United States. A description of the Project was included in the Judiciary Committee's Oversight Plan for the 109th Congress, as approved by the Committee on January 26, 2005. The Project will culminate with the preparation of a detailed report with recommendations for legislative proposals and suggested areas for further research and analysis to be considered by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) requested the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to assist Representative Chris Cannon (R-UT), the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (CAL), in conducting the Project.
The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) is perhaps the most comprehensive effort by the U.S. federal government to balance the social goals of federal regulations with the needs and capabilities of small businesses and other small entities in American society.
Midnight regulations are United States federal government regulations created by executive branch agencies during the transition period of an outgoing president's administration.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a law that was enacted by the United States Congress as Subtitle E of the Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on March 29, 1996. The law empowers Congress to review, by means of an expedited legislative process, new federal regulations issued by government agencies and, by passage of a joint resolution, to overrule a regulation. Once a rule is thus repealed, the CRA also prohibits the reissuing of the rule in substantially the same form or the issuing of a new rule that is substantially the same "unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution disapproving the original rule". Congress has a window of time lasting 60 legislative days to disapprove of any given rule by simple-majority vote; otherwise, the rule will go into effect at the end of that period.
Regulations.gov is a U.S. Federal government web site that acts as an "Internet portal and document repository" that allows members of the public to participate in the rulemaking processes of some Federal government agencies.
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law 79–404, 60 Stat. 237, enacted June 11, 1946, is the United States federal statute that governs the way in which administrative agencies of the federal government of the United States may propose and establish regulations and it grants U.S. federal courts oversight over all agency actions. According to Hickman & Pierce, it is one of the most important pieces of United States administrative law, and serves as a sort of "constitution" for U.S. administrative law.
The SEC Regulatory Accountability Act is a bill that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives in the 113th United States Congress. The bill would amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to give new directions to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) governing its regulation creation and amendment process. The SEC would be required to assess the significance of the problem they are considering addressing, determine whether the estimated costs would outweigh the estimated benefits, and identify alternatives to their proposed regulation. The bill is intended to help protect the financial sector from excessive, burdensome regulations created by the SEC. The bill would do this by ordering the SEC to conduct a cost-benefit study before issuing any new rules to ensure that the expected benefits of the new rule would outweigh the expected costs of imposing it.
The Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2013 is a bill that would make a number of changes to procedures that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) follows in its rulemaking processes. The FCC would have to act in a more transparent way as a result of this bill, forced to accept public input about regulations. Although the FCC would be allowed to decide on its own transparency guidelines, it would have to report annually on how well it was meeting those guidelines. The FCC would also have to provide notice about rules it was writing and allow for comment.
The Federal Register Modernization Act was a bill that would require the Federal Register to be published, rather than printed, and that documents in the Federal Register be made available for sale or distribution to the public in published form.
Executive Order 12866 in the United States requires benefit-cost analysis for any new regulation that is "economically significant," which is defined as having "an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more or adversely affect[ing] in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, [or] jobs," or creating an inconsistency with other law, or any of several other conditions. The Order established a "regulatory philosophy" and several "principles for regulation," among them requirements to explicitly identify the problem to be addressed, determine whether existing regulations created or contributed to the problem, assess alternatives to direct regulation, and design regulations in the most cost-effective manner. § 1(a) summarizes this regulatory philosophy as follows:
