FLAG prepares monthly summaries of rules published in the Federal Register that directly affect the legal interests of the agricultural and rural Native American communities. These summaries are not to be considered legal advice. Please see an attorney to discuss any questions you may have regarding the application of these rules to an individual situation. If you think that a rule summarized here may affect your rights or obligations, you can review the rule in full by visiting the Federal Register web site.

Also, see An Introduction to the Federal Register below.

NOTE: These listings do not include many of the rules that directly affect farmers and ranchers. For example, these listings do not include: EPA or FDA rules affecting individual pesticides, APHIS rules regarding the permitting process or animal quarantine, specific FDA animal drug rules, the availability of specific environmental statements, notices regarding the posting and de-posting of stockyards under the Packers & Stockyards Act, and Sunshine Act meeting notices. These listings also do not include specific marketing orders and commodity promotion notices published by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS); notices regarding particular disaster areas published by either FEMA or the SBA; Commodity Futures Trading Board rules and notices; and import and export rules regarding particular plants, animals or commodities. If you have concerns regarding rules in any of these excluded areas, we encourage you to review the Federal Register daily at the United States Government Printing Office (GPO) web site.

Comments to Federal Rules. FLAG provides administrative technical assistance to its clients by submitting formal comments on proposed federal agency regulations and notices.

An Introduction to the Federal Register

The Federal Register is the official publication for federal regulations (rules), notices, and other federal agency documents as well as Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders. It is published daily, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays, by the Office of the Federal Register in Washington, DC. It is available on paper, on microfiche, and as an online database through GPO Access, a service of the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Federal law generally requires that any substantive rule or any significant change in a substantive rule must be published in the Federal Register before it becomes effective. The law governing the promulgation of rules by federal agencies is in the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 553.

According to the Administrative Procedure Act, a rule (or a change in an existing rule) usually must first be published in a proposed form. The public is invited to submit comments on the proposal. Everyone has a right to comment, and the law requires that the agency review each comment that it receives. After the comment period has ended, the agency can then publish a final form of the regulation, taking into consideration the comments that it received. Once a rule has been published in final form, it has the force and effect of law, and a violation of the rule will be a violation of law.

Sometimes, however, an agency is entitled to publish an "interim final rule" without first publishing a proposed rule. Although comments may still be made, in the meantime this rule will have the force and effect of a final rule.

Once a rule has been published in the Federal Register in final form, it will usually be published again in a volume of federal rules called the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The CFR comes out once a year and includes all of the regulations published up to that point. There are numerous volumes of the CFR, with the rules divided generally according to the agency that has promulgated them. For example, the rules governing most of the federal farm programs are published in volume 7 of the CFR. Copies of the CFRs are available at many public libraries, county law libraries, and online through GPO Access on the Internet. They can also be purchased from the U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC, 20402-9328. The GPO Order Desk can be phoned at 202-512-1800. When using the CFR, keep in mind that there may be changes to the rules or new rules that have been published in the Federal Register since the time that the CFR was published.