Government regulation
Government regulation encompasses the official rules and guidelines established by local, state, and federal governments to govern the behavior of citizens and organizations. These regulations are crucial for clarifying how laws are enforced and ensuring that all parties involved—agencies, businesses, and the public—understand their rights and responsibilities. Primarily, government regulations aim to protect consumers from unfair business practices, uphold environmental standards, and secure the welfare of employees, among other objectives. The process of creating regulations involves public input and transparency, typically published in the Federal Register.
Regulations can be intricate, often spanning multiple pages, and are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations, organized into various titles that cover broad topics. Each title is further divided into chapters, subchapters, and sections, facilitating easier access and comprehension. While many view regulations as essential for public safety and accountability, some critics argue that they can be overly burdensome and may hinder business operations. Recent legal developments, such as the Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, highlight ongoing debates about the balance of power between regulatory agencies and the judiciary, reflecting diverse perspectives on the role of government regulation in society.
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Government regulation
Laws are official rules set by local, state, and federal governments to govern citizens. Regulations are official rules that explain how certain federal agencies, boards, or commissions enforce laws. Government regulations ensure that agencies, businesses, and the public know and follow certain rules. Regulations are designed to help these entities and keep them from harm. Regulations help to protect consumers from unfair business practices and unsafe products, hold businesses and corporations accountable, limit pollution, and more.
Federal agencies create regulations using a process known as rulemaking. These agencies must gain input from the public before they make, change, or abolish regulations. Agencies publish proposed regulations in the Federal Register, the US federal government journal, to garner public feedback. Agencies might revise or withdraw proposed regulations based on public opinion. Once a regulation is in place, agencies must publish it in the Federal Register, along with a date the regulation will begin. All government regulations are codified and published every year in the Code of Federal Regulations. US laws are codified in the United States Code.
History
Prior to the 1930s, the US government published regulations in various publications. This scattered approach made it difficult for the public, agencies, and the US government to determine which regulations existed and where to find them and resulted in much confusion.
In 1935, Congress passed the Federal Register Act to establish a government publication that would collect all regulations in one place. The act put the National Archives and the Government Printing Office in charge of this publication, a journal known as the Federal Register. The first issue was published on March 14, 1936. The publication listed regulations, changes, and additions along with other government notices and bulletins. It grew to include all proposed regulations, public comments about proposed regulations, and finalized versions of regulations.
In 1937, Congress amended the Federal Register Act to require coding and categorization of government regulations by subject to make them easier to access. The regulations that were published in the Federal Register were compiled into a codified volume known as the Code of Federal Regulations the following year. Supplements were published in subsequent years, and a second volume was published in 1949. Supplements containing changes were published in the years that followed. By 1967 the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) decided to print yearly revisions to the code, but this task became arduous. The OFR then decided to split the code into four sections and revise one section per quarter to ensure that the entire code was revised every year. The OFR continues to follow this process today.
Overview
Government regulations serve to protect federal agencies, businesses, and the public. For example, business regulations help to protect certain rights for employees, such as wages, benefits, and working conditions. The Fair Labor Standards Act regulates a minimum wage that has to be paid to workers in the United States.
Regulations help everyone understand laws. The purpose of regulations is to further explain laws and provide all details pertaining to particular laws, including how to enforce them. Regulations can be very lengthy because typically more than one regulation can pertain to one law. A law may be a few paragraphs in length, but the regulations that accompany may span several pages.
The Code of Federal Regulations was developed to gather all regulations in one place. It breaks the regulations into fifty titles. These titles represent broad subjects such as Agriculture, Education, Postal Service, Public Health, and Transportation. The titles are categorized by a number. In most cases, the title number corresponds to the same title number in the United States Code. The titles are divided into chapters, which are categorized by the name of the federal agency that issued the regulation. Chapters are subdivided into subchapters, which are further divided into parts, subparts, and sections. Each piece is designed to further explain the regulations under each title.
For example, Title 27—Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms is broken down into two chapters:
- Chapter I—Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, Department of the Treasury
- Chapter II—Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Department of Justice
Then, Chapter I is subdivided into thirteen subchapters. The following are a few examples:
- Subchapter A—Alcohol
- Subchapter B—Tobacco
- Subchapter C—Firearms
Next, each subchapter is further divided into parts that deal with specifics related to the subject of the title. For example, Subchapter A contains thirty-nine parts. The following are some examples of these parts:
- Part 1—Basic Permit Requirements Under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act, Nonindustrial Use of Distilled Spirits and Wine, Bulk Sales and Bottling of Distilled Spirits
- Part 4—Labeling and Advertising of Wine
- Part 25—Beer
These parts are then divided into subparts. For example, Part 25—Beer contains twenty-one subparts. Subparts include the following:
- Subpart A—Scope of Regulations
- Subpart K—Tax on Beer
- Subpart S—Pilot Brewing Plants
Finally, these subparts are split into sections. Subpart A of Part 25 contains six sections, which include the following:
- Section 25.1 Production and removal of beer.
- Section 25.2 Territorial extent.
- Section 25.3 Forms prescribed.
Government regulations are numerous and complex. They are codified to make them easier to find and understand. Some people, such as business owners, complain that many of these regulations are unnecessary and end up harming those they were designed to protect. The government defends these regulations, contending that they are created to protect the best interests of agencies, businesses, and the public.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024), the US Supreme Court overturned Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), which had established the Chevron doctrine requiring courts to defer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of regulations passed by Congress. In overturning Chevron, the Court held that the federal judiciary was required to decide whether an agency had acted within its statutory authority and could not defer to an agency's interpretation of an ambiguously worded statute. Supporters of the decision argued that it would make it easier to successfully challenge overly burdensome regulations and restrictions in court, while critics said that it severely weakened the agencies' ability to safeguard the public from powerful business interests and gave too much power to the judiciary.
Bibliography
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"Code of Federal Regulations (Annual Edition)." GovInfo, US Government Printing Office, 2024, www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/cfr/2024/. Accessed 1 July 2024.
Daly, Matthew. "What It Means for the Supreme Court to Throw Out Chevron Decision, Undercutting Federal Regulators." AP, 28 June 2024, apnews.com/article/supreme-court-chevron-regulations-environment-4ae73d5a79cabadff4da8f7e16669929/ Accessed 1 July 2024.
Davis, Marc. "Government Regulations: Do They Help Businesses?" Investopedia. Investopedia, LLC, 10 Apr. 2024, www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/11/government-regulations.asp. Accessed 1 July 2024.
"Federal Laws and Regulations." USA.gov, www.usa.gov/laws-and-regulations. Accessed 1 July 2024.
Holt, Mitchell. "Five Areas of Government Regulation of Business." Chron, Hearst Newspapers, 29 Jan. 2019, smallbusiness.chron.com/five-areas-government-regulation-business-701.html. Accessed 1 July 2024.
Liptak, Adam. "Justices Limit Power of Federal Agencies, Imperiling an Array of Regulations." The New York Times, /www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/us/supreme-court-chevron-ruling.html. Accessed 1 July 2024.
McKinney, Richard J. "A Research Guide to the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations." Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC, 16 Sept. 2019, www.llsdc.org/fr-cfr-research-guide. Accessed 1 July 2024.
Supreme Court of the United States. Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., et al. No. 82–1005, 25 June 1984, tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep467/usrep467837/usrep467837.pdf. Accessed 1 July 2024.