Federal Register

The Federal Register is the official gazette of the United States federal government, published every federal working day by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), a component of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and printed by the Government Publishing Office (GPO). It was created by the Federal Register Act of 1935 and first appeared on March 14, 1936, in response to confusion during the New Deal over which executive orders and agency rules were actually in force — a problem highlighted by the Supreme Court case Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1935).

The Register's contents typically include:

• Presidential documents, such as executive orders, proclamations, and certain memoranda
• Proposed rules from federal agencies, opening public comment periods under the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946
• Final rules, which generally take legal effect only after publication
• Notices, including hearings, grant availability, and information collections
• Sunshine Act meeting notices

Publication in the Federal Register provides constructive legal notice to the public: under 44 U.S.C. § 1507, a document required to be published is generally not enforceable against a person without actual knowledge of it until it appears in the Register. Final rules of general applicability are subsequently codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is organized by subject into 50 titles and updated annually.

Since 1994 the Register has been available online, and the modern site federalregister.gov, launched in 2010, offers searchable, structured access along with a public API. It is a primary research source for analysts tracking U.S. regulatory policy, sanctions designations (often issued by OFAC), trade actions, immigration rules, and environmental standards. For Model UN delegates and IR researchers, the Register is the authoritative starting point for documenting U.S. domestic implementation of treaty obligations and unilateral executive actions.