Regulations and Proposed Rules

Federal Register - Environmental Documents
Full text of all Federal Register documents issued by EPA, and of selected documents issued by other Departments and Agencies. Notices, meetings, proposed rules, and regulations are divided into twelve topical categories for easy access (eg. air, water, pesticides, toxics, waste).

Federal Register database
The Government Printing Office (GPO) maintains the official electronic database that covers Federal Register documents beginning in January, 1994. Unlike the EPA Environmental Documents service, it provides access to all Federal Register documents from all Departments and Agencies.

The Semiannual Regulatory Agenda
All agencies publish semiannual regulatory agendas describing regulatory actions they are developing or have recently completed. These agendas are published in the Federal Register, usually during April and October each year, as part of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.

• EPA Unified Agenda Preamble - Explains the rulemaking process, EPA's regulatory priorities and the contents of the Unified Agenda. Made available by the Regulatory Information Service Center of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).

• EPA Semiannual Regulatory Agenda - entire semiannual regulatory agenda for the EPA provided by the Regulatory Information Service Center. The EPA Semiannual Regulatory Agenda is also availabe as a 730K Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file.

• EPA Semiannual Regulatory Agenda Table of Contents - provided by the Regulatory Information Service Center.

• The EPA Regulatory Plan - The Regulatory Plan is a statement of the agency's regulatory policies and priorities. The plan contain two sections; the Statement of Priorities, a narrative statement of the agency's regulatory priorities, and a description of the most important proposed or final rules that the agency reasonably expects to issue during the next year.

• Search the Unified Agenda - This site, maintained by the Government Printing Office, offers instructions and tips on how to search for Unified Agenda information and upcoming actions. The site searches the entire Unified Agenda.

Dockets
Dockets contain information and supporting documentation related to the rulemaking process. Public comments received on rules and proposed rules are also maintained in the appropriate Docket.

Dockets, Electronic Dockets, and Information Centers - Collections containing the public record of information used to document Agency rule making.

Codified Regulations

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is a codification of the rules published in the Federal Register by Executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government. The CFR is divided into 50 titles which represent broad areas subject to Federal regulation, with environmental regulations contained mainly in title 40. Each volume of the CFR is revised once each calendar year. Title 40 is revised every July 1.

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) database - An electronic version of the paper edition of the CFR available from the Government Printing Office (GPO).

The Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) Prototype - A joint project created by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and GPO to provide a frequently updated CFR.

CFR Title 40 : Protection of Environment - EPA's regulations updated on a frequent basis by linking to OFR's e-CFR prototype available on GPO's web site.

Federal and State Government Regulation and Program References - Links to Federal regulations found in CFR Title 40 and State government regulation and programs for the U.S. territories and the 50 U.S. States.

Current Legislation

Thomas - Legislative Information on the Internet
available from the Library of Congress is a resource providing access to current legislation, uncompiled Public Laws, the Congressional Record, committee information, and information about the legislative process.

Current major legislation from the 107th Congress - including Environmental Protection, Hazardous Substances and Water Pollution.

U.S. House of Representatives Committees

U.S. Senate Committees

Committee on Environment and Public Works

Laws

The U.S. Code is the official record of all federal laws.

The United States Code (USC) database available from the Government Printing Office (GPO).
The United States Code is prepared and published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives. This database contains the laws of the United States in effect as of January 1996. For more recent enactments one must turn to the uncompiled statues or Public Laws in the form passed by Congress. [see legislation section]

More than a dozen major laws form the legal basis for the programs of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).