Library Guides: Administrative Law: Updating Federal Regs

Updating the CFR Online

e-CFR (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations)
This is not an official version but is updated daily.
CFR (Bloomberg Law)
The Bloomberg version of the CFR is generally about three days out of date. To update regulations, search the Federal Register database for revisions issued since that date.
CFR (Lexis)
The Lexis+ version of the CFR is generally about seven business days out of date. To update regulations, search the Federal Register database for revisions issued since that date.
CFR (Westlaw)
The Westlaw version of the CFR is generally about seven business days out of date. To update regulations, search the Federal Register database for revisions issued since that date.
GovInfo.gov
The fastest and most cost-effective way to update regulations is to use GovInfo. The same quarterly publication schedule for the printed CFR volumes is followed on this site and GovInfo is considered an official online source of the CFR. To update your regulation, note the date when the current CFR volume containing your section was revised (published). Then consult the next two items listed in this box to complete your updating.
List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA)
Use the LSA to look for changes impacting your regulation since the CFR volume containing the section was last revised. Typically, you will only need to consult the most recent edition of the LSA.
List of CFR Sections Affected from the Federal Register
Since the LSA is a monthly publication, its coverage often stops at the end of the previous month. To check for more recent changes, use the "CFR Parts Affected from the Federal Register" updating tool and enter a date range to ensure your research is current through today's date.

Citators

Code of Federal Regulations
Use Shepard's (via Lexis), KeyCite (via Westlaw), or BCite (via Bloomberg Law) to find out if there are any cases discussing a CFR section.

Administrative Decisions
Use Shepard's (via Lexis), KeyCite (via Westlaw), or BCite (via Bloomberg Law) to find administrative decisions. Note that not all administrative decisions are noted in the citators.

Updating the CFR in Print

Regulations are updated frequently. Once you have located an appropriate regulation in the print CFR, you need to make sure that the regulation is still in effect.

There are three steps to updating the print version of the CFR:

Step One: Locate the revision date on the front cover of the CFR volume that contains your regulation. Find the most recent monthly pamphlet of the List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA). Note the beginning date of coverage for your CFR title, listed on the inside cover of the LSA. If there is a gap between the CFR volume’s revision date and the LSA, check quarterly LSA cumulations (March, June, September, and December) in reverse chronological order from the present until you have the complete date coverage.

Step Two: Check for your CFR title and section in the lists of final and proposed regulations. If your title and section are not included in either list, there are no revisions or proposed revisions to the regulation through the period covered by the LSA. If it is included, there will be a citation to a page in the Federal Register where you can find the text of the change. To identify which Federal Register issue contains the change, check the “Table of FR Issue Pages & Dates,” which is found in the back of the LSA issue.

Step Three: To update from the time period between the latest LSA pamphlet and the present, look in the last issue of the Federal Register for each month since the last monthly LSA, ending with the latest issue of the current month. At the back of each issue of the Federal Register is a list of CFR sections affected during that month.

If your regulation appears in any of these List of CFR Sections Affected, there will be a citation to a page of the Federal Register where the new regulation will appear. If your section does not appear in any of these lists, it has not changed.

Administrative Law: Updating Federal Regs

Because the official version of the CFR is only updated once each year, updating your CFR research to ensure you have current information is essential.

Updating the CFR Online

Citators

Updating the CFR in Print