Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations Indexes

   Emily Feltren, Director of Government Relations at the American Association of Law Libraries, and our own director, Mary Jenkins, who is also chair of the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries’  government relations committee, are bringing their shared concern to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s reporting out the Federal Register Modernization Act (HR 4195), introduced the night before the mark up by Rep Darrell E. Issa on March 11th..

  The bill, Feltren informs, “changes the requirement to print the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations to ‘publish’ them, eliminates the statutory requirement that the CFR be printed and bound, and eliminates the requirement to produce an index to the Federal Register and CFR. The Administrative Committee of the Federal Register governs how the FR and CFR are published and distributed to the public, and will continue to do so.

 “Interestingly, the Office of the Federal Register itself touted the usefulness of its index when it announced the retooled index last year.”

  Jenkins adds that “It's critically important that governments at all levels retain print resources unless they come up with an online alternative that's permanent, official, public, and authenticated.”

  Comments about the utility of the FR or CFR indexes in your practice and/or organization are being requested by Feltren and/or Jenkins a.s.a.p.