Code of Federal Regulations

Free Access to the Code of Federal Regulations

Compliance with the regulations of the US EPA and the US DOT – not to mention the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) – requires knowledge of those regulations.  Knowledge of the regulations can only come after you  have familiarized yourself with their structure and content.  And familiarity requires access.  The objective of this article is to inform you of a free source of the regulations of the US DOT, US EPA, and other Federal agencies.

The general and permanent rules of all Federal Agencies are first printed in the Federal Register and then codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).  It is the responsibility of the Government Printing Office (GPO) – an agency of the legislative branch of the Federal Government that provides printing and binding services for congress – to make the CFR available to interested parties.  In the old days (remember the 90’s?) this would have meant printing and distributing a hardcopy on the printed page.  But in this modern age of the internet the CFR is available to you on-line:  free, easily accessible, and with tools to help make sense of it.

The CFR is available from the GPO in two formats both of which are available through the GPO’s Federal Digit System (FDsys):

The annual edition of the CFR is available online for calendar years 1996 through 2012.  It contains the 50 titles of the CFR which are updated once each calendar year on a staggered basis. The annual update cycle is as follows:

  • Titles 1-16 are revised as of January 1
  • Titles 17-27 are revised as of April 1
  • Titles 28-41 are revised as of July 1
  • Titles 42-50 are revised as of October 1

This version of the CFR can be downloaded in several formats:  pdf, text, & XML.  Of the three, only pdf and text have legal status as parts of the official online format of the Code of Federal Regulations (User Guide Document – CFR XML Rendition).  In addition to its legal status, pay attention to the annual updates to the CFR based on the title:

  • OSHA regulations are in Title 29 – Annual update on July 1.
  • US EPA are in Title 40 – Annual update on July 1.
  • US DOT are in Title 49 – Annual update on October 1.

Also available is an electronic version of the CFR known as the e-CFR.  This version includes all 50 titles of the CFR but has the advantage of more frequent updates (daily) than the annual edition of the CFR.  In addition to the daily updates its advantages include user-friendly tools for searching the regulations.  You may also use standard web-browser tools such as search, print, bookmark, or hyperlinks to make the e-CFR more useful to you.

Unfortunately the e-CFR is an editorial compilation of the CFR and Federal Register amendments, “It is not an official legal edition of the CFR”.  In other words its a great source of information but before you make any difficult regulatory decisions, be sure you have researched the official legal edition of the annual edition of the CFR.

 Access to the Federal regulations is a good first step, now you have to understand them.  One thing I do in my Public Training Seminars is to cite the applicable Federal regulations to aid in understanding the connection between your operations and the regulations.
You must also consider the regulations of your state which will take precedence over those of the US EPA if your state has an authorized hazardous waste program.  That is why in my Onsite Training I design my training presentation based on the applicable state regulations.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions about the regulations or your training options.

 

The Rulemaking Process

The Code of Federal Regulations or CFR contains all of the rules and regulations of Federal Agencies, a description of the structure of the CFR can be found here.  Equally important to understanding the regulations is awareness of the rulemaking process where a determination is made that a new or revised regulation is necessary and steps taken to create that regulation.  A graphic illustration or “Reg Map” of the process can be found here.

Before the rulemaking process becomes public, a Federal agency must take the initiative to create a new rule or revise an existing one to meet some need.  The agency will determine if a new or revised rule is needed based on a variety of factors that may include public health and safety concerns, new scientific data or technology, political pressure, and more.  The agency will then prepare a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and make it available for review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Executive Order 12866, signed by President Clinton in 1993, created guidelines for OMB to follow during its review.  It will not allow the NPRM to be published if, among other things, it is not consistent with the issuing agencies authority and philosophy, contradicts or conflicts with existing rules, or if it determines the issuing agency has not considered alternatives to issuing the rule.  The OMB will only review those rulemaking actions it determines to be “significant”.

If the NPRM passes the OMB review, it is ready to be published in the Federal Register.  The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents.  The purpose of the NPRM is to make publicly known the proposed new rule or revision.  The agency will include with the NPRM its reasons for the rule and supporting information.  The public is then to comment on the NPRM.

Comments on the NPRM by the public may be made through a variety of methods:  US Mail, hand delivery, fax, email, or web portal (www.regulations.gov).  Comments must reference the Docket Number and Regulation Identifier Number (RIN) assigned to the NPRM.  Choose your words carefully, all comments are made publicly available along with the NPRM.

The Comment Period will last for a period of time established by the agency in the NPRM (60 days is standard); the holding of a public hearing during this time is at the discretion of the agency unless required by statute or its policy.  At the close of the Comment Period the agency will conduct research taking into consideration any new information contained in comments received.  Consideration is given to the proposed rule’s economic costs and benefits, possible environmental impact, and overall burden on the regulated parties.  After it has completed the research to its satisfaction the agency will draft the final rule, interim final rule, or direct final rule.

  • A final rule adds, changes, deletes, or affirms regulatory text.
  • An interim final rule adds, changes, or deletes regulatory text and contains a request for comments. The subsequent final rule may make changes to the text of the interim final rule.
  • A direct final rule adds, changes, or deletes regulatory text at a specified future time, with a duty to withdraw the rule if the agency receives adverse comments within the period specified by the agency.

The OMB then has ninety days to again review the rule prior to its publication.  OMB may either approve the rule for publication or send it back to the issuing agency for additional research.

Publication of the rule may take the form of each or all of the following:

  • Submittal to both houses of Congress and the General Accounting Office for review and possible impact on the rule.
  • Publication in the Federal Register.
  • Publication in the Code of Federal Regulations

The Federal Register entry contains valuable information in the form of the preamble where the agency will address comments received, provide support information for the appearance of the rule as published, indicate the purpose of the rule, and include its opinion of what the rule means.

The agency may make minor changes to the rule upon publication, such as correcting typos, without informing the public or creating a comment period.

Why is it so important to be aware of this process?  Every step of the above that takes place in the public realm is made available on the internet (www.regulations.gov).  Given the widespread availability of the internet, the government assumes that this information will be known by all affected persons.  In short, if you are in non-compliance with a regulation because you were unaware of its existence, the agency (US EPA, OSHA, US DOT) will point to its publication in the Federal Register and say, “you should have known”.

I have had the opportunity to conduct training for a variety of companies over the years.  It is not uncommon that they first learn of the existence of a regulation from me.  Often they are surprised to learn that they are not in compliance with a regulation that has been in effect for years; their comment:  “No one told us about that.”  The regulatory agencies such as the US EPA or the US DOT won’t tell you about a new or revised regulation until they find you to be in violation and it’s too late.  Attending high-quality training like mine is one way to learn about new and revised regulations that affect you and meet the training requirements of the US EPA and the US DOT.

My one day training events will meet the regulatory requirements of the US EPA for hazardous waste personnel and the US DOT for HazMat Employees.  Check out my training schedule to find a date and location convenient for you or contact me (Info@DanielsTraining.com) to arrange for on-site training.

Understanding the Structure of the Code of Federal Regulations

You may have heard of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) or the Hazardous Materials Transportation Uniform Safety Act.  These Acts passed by Congress and signed by the President typically contain broad outlines of what the government wishes to accomplish.  Acts such as these empower Federal agencies like the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Labor, or the US Department of Transportation to turn the broad goals of the Act into specific regulations or rules which have the force of law.  The regulations of these three agencies and many others of general applicability to the public with current and future effect are published in the Federal Register for review and comments prior to being codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

The CFR is organized into 50 titles according to broad subject matter categories, such as:  Labor (29), Environment (40), and Transportation (49).  These three titles, especially, should be familiar to manufacturing and transportation-related businesses in the US, as they are the source for most of the regulatory compliance issues they face.  Finding the exact regulatory citation you need can be a challenge.  It can be even harder if you don’t know the structure of the CFR and how the regulations are arranged.  This article is meant to change that.  A comforting fact is that except for titles 3, 41, & 48 the CFR has a uniform numbering system, so what you learn here should apply in most cases.  Here, in descending order, is the organizational system of the CFR.

Title – as mentioned above, this represents a broad subject area of regulations.  Title 40 of the CFR – or 40 CFR – contains all of the regulations of the US EPA.  49 CFR, the regulations of the Department of Transportation, and so on.

Subtitle – if used at all – title 40 doesn’t – separates the administrative rules of the agency itself (usually in Subtitle A) from the regulations it is responsible for (usually in Subtitle B).

Chapter – contains the rules of the issuing agency and usually bears its name (ie. the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Department of Transportation).

Subchapter – a further refinement of the chapter, if necessary.

Part – contains rules on a single program or function.

Subpart – a further refinement of the part, if necessary.

Section – is the basic unit of the CFR (ie. 40 CFR 262.34).  It typically contains one provision of program/function rules.  A section may contain up to six – yeah, that’s right, six – levels of paragraphs depending on the complexity of the regulations.  It gives me some comfort to know that the agencies arerecommended to use no more than three levels of paragraphs in one section.  The six levels of paragraphs in a section would look like this.

  • Level 1 (aka. Paragraph) Displayed in the CFR as: (a), (b), (c), etc.
  • Level 2 (aka. Subparagraph) Displayed in the CFR as: (1), (2), (3), etc.
  • Level 3 (aka. Sub-subparagraph) Displayed in the CFR as: (i), (ii), (iii), etc.
  • Level 4 Displayed in the CFR as: (A), (B), (C), etc.
  • Level 5 Displayed in the CFR as: (1), (2), (3), etc.
  • Level 6 Displayed in the CFR as: (i), (ii), (iii), etc.

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You may observe the word Reserved used throughout the CFR in place of the above headings, in these cases an agency is using Reserved as a placeholder to indicate that it may insert regulations into this location sometime in the future or to indicate that a portion of the CFR was intentionally left empty.

Titles are completely revised and reissued once each year on a staggered schedule:

  • Titles 1-16       Updated as of January 1
  • Titles 17-27     Updated as of April 1
  • Titles 28-41     Updated as of July 1
  • Titles 42-50     Updated as of October 1

If you are subject to any federal regulations I advise to obtain access to the Code of Federal Regulations for yourself.  It is a must for anyone who manages EHS compliance in manufacturing, transportation, or any commercial entity.  Access can be gained in a few different ways:

  • There are commercial services that can provide you with online access to all or portions of the CFR as you require.  Though not without cost, these services can be very valuable as they allow you to bookmark frequently used regulations and also contain hyperlinks to follow along when one regulation references another.  Though there are others out there, the one I am familiar with and recommend is CyberRegs.
  • An on-line version of the CFR is available for free from the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
  • Hardcopies can be purchased from the Government Publishing Office.
  • The GPO also provides a free on-line version of the CFR: eCFR

Daniels Training Services, Inc.

815.821.1550

Info@DanielsTraining.com

https://www.danielstraining.com/

Gaining access to the regulations of the USEPA and the USDOT is a good first step.   Assembling an understanding of how the regulations apply to your operations is a bit more complicated and can be intimidating.  Attendance at one of my training events will help you to understand which of the regulations apply to your operations, which you need to pay very close attention to, and where you may find exceptions from full regulation.  On-site training goes further and will explain state regulations as well that apply to your generation of hazardous waste and transportation of hazardous materials.