Federal Laws and Regulations

Congress.gov is replacing the Thomas system from Library of Congress. It provides information on Public Laws and bills from 1973 to the present. However, the full texts of the laws are only available from 1993 (103rd Congress) to the present.

Govinfo allows you to search for terms and phrases in the full text of Public Laws since 1995 (the 104th Congress).

This interface allows you to view a Public Law if you know its Public Law number (ex. Pub. L. 105-12) for laws from 1995 (the 104th Congress) to the present. The text can be downloaded as an ASCII text (able to be used in word processors) or in PDF format (gives the look of the originally published pages). PDF requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader (available free on the Internet).

This richly hyperlinked version allows keyword searching, browsing by title, and access via a hyperlinked popular name table. The version is the most recent version available to from the House of Representatives. The text is provided in HTML format with linked cross references. One can search for parallel authority references in the Code of Federal Regulations. The site uses frames.

Search this version of the U.S. Code by keyword, title and section, or by cross Reference. The text is provided in ASCII text format. Also at this site: classification tables (not hyperlinked) that translate Pub.L. sections to USC sections. The version is the most recent available (supplements are added, so that you only see the current codification).

GPO Access allows you to search for terms and phrases in the full text of the U.S. Code. The 1994 version and the Annual Supplements are separate databases. To search by special features (such as by Public Law number), see its

The basic text in HTML format. There are hyperlinks from the main text to any amendments that have altered the standing of the original article.

The text of the constitution with annotations to court opinions that have articulated the legal meaning of the original text. The text can be searched by keyword or browsed by Table of Contents. There is an index and Table of Cases, but they are not hyperlinked for convenience. The text can be downloaded as an ASCII text or in PDF format.

The Federal Register website from the Office of the Federal Register.

This site allows users to browse the Federal Register by date and section. To search FR, use the Federal Register 2.0 site above.

This site allows people to email in comments on proposed Federal Rules and Regulations.

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the collection of regulations that are currently in force. This version of the CFR can be browsed or searched. The interface to locate sections is friendlier than in GPO Access. However, the LII search engine only indexes the section headings in the CFR, not the full text as GPO Access does. It retrieves sections in context. In other words you not only get sections whose headings contain your search terms but also those related sections in the same part of the Code. The text is the GPO Access text, available in both ASCII text and PDF format.

This interface allows one to find CFR texts by volume and section.

The List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA) contains new and amended Federal regulations that have been published in the Federal Register recently. One first specifies how recent the changes are in which one is interested, and then you select the CFR section about which you want to see changes.

The Unified Agenda, also known as the Semiannual Regulatory Agenda, is published in the Federal Register twice a year, usually in April and October. It summarizes the rules and proposed rules that each agency expects to issue during the following 12 months. This version, from the Regulatory Information Service Center at the OMB, allows one to search the titles and abstracts of regulations, or browse table of contents or indexes. The link here takes the user to the search screen. To get to the table of contents, click on the "Unified Agenda" link on the upper menu bar, and then click on the "Current Plan" link.