How to Find a Regulation

The most reliable route into regulatory research is rarely a cold search of the CFR. This module builds the map: how a rule is made (and the documents each stage leaves for you), the entry routes your question type points to, and the checklist that confirms the text you found is still the law.

How to use this: three short sections — explore the pipeline, choose the entry route for three research questions, then match each currency tool to what it catches. Your work is collected locally for the record you can download at the end. How to Read a Regulation is the companion: this module finds the text; that one reads it.

1 · The rulemaking pipeline — every stage leaves you a document

Click each stage. The shorthand to keep: NPRM = intent · comments = objections · final-rule preamble = the agency's answers.

Click a stage

Each stage of rulemaking produces documents a researcher can use. Click through all four.

Explored 0 of 4 stages

2 · Reading the address — how a CFR citation is organized

The CFR is organized into 50 subject titles. Click each piece of the book's example citation.

C.F.R.

Click a highlighted piece of the citation.

Between title and part sits the chapter, which identifies the agency. Two features of every CFR part matter later: the authority note (the statute empowering the agency) and the source note (the Federal Register document that created or last amended the part — the thread you pull to reach the preamble). See them in context in How to Read a Regulation.

3 · Pick the entry route

Your question type points to the door. For each research question, choose the most reliable way in.

4 · The currency checklist — match the tool to what it catches

A regulation you found is not a regulation you can rely on until you confirm it is current. Five tools, five different failure modes. Match them.