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Basic Information
Have you ever wondered how EPA protects the environment? We use a variety of tools and approaches, like partnerships, educational programs, and grants. One of our most significant tools is writing regulations. Regulations are mandatory requirements that can apply to individuals, businesses, state or local governments, non-profit institutions, or others.
Congress passes the laws that govern the United States, but Congress has also authorized EPA and other federal agencies to help put those laws into effect by creating and enforcing regulations. Below, you'll find a basic description of how laws and regulations are developed, what they are, and where to find them, with an emphasis on environmental laws and regulations.
- Creating a Law
- Putting the Law to Work
- Creating a Regulation
- Planning for the Future
- How You Can Get Involved
Our online brochure is a good place to learn more: How We Write Regulations.
Creating a Law
Step 1:
A member of Congress proposes a bill. A bill is a document that, if approved, will become law. To see the text of bills Congress is considering or has considered, look on the Library of Congress' THOMAS Web site.
Step 2:
If both houses of Congress approve a bill, it goes to the President who has the option to either approve it or veto it. If approved, the new law is called an act. Some of the better-known laws related to the environment are the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
- Major Environmental Laws
- THOMAS - For more information on how bills are written and passed.
Step 3:
Once an act is passed, the House of Representatives standardizes the text of the law and publishes it in the United States Code (U.S.C.). The U.S. Code is
- United States Code - This database is available from the Government Printing Office. GPO is the sole agency authorized by the federal government to publish the U.S.C.
- Cornell University's Legal Information Institute - includes their own U.S. Code database.
Putting the Law to Work
Now that the law is official, here's how it is put into practice: Laws often do not include all the details needed to explain how an individual, business, state or local government, or non-profit might follow the law. The United States Code would not tell you, for example, what the speed limit is in front of your house. In order to make the laws work on a day-to-day level, Congress authorizes certain government agencies - including EPA - to create regulations.
Regulations set specific requirements about what is legal and what isn't. For example, a regulation issued by EPA to implement the Clean Air Act might explain what levels of a pollutant - such as sulfur dioxide - are safe. It would tell industries how much sulfur dioxide they can legally emit into the air, and what the penalty will be if they emit too much. Once the regulation is in effect, EPA then works to help Americans comply with the law and to enforce it.
Creating a Regulation
When developing regulations, the first thing we do is ask if a regulation is needed at all. Every regulation is developed under slightly different circumstances, but this is the general process:
Step 1:
The Agency researches the issues and, if necessary, proposes a regulation. The proposal is listed in the Federal Register (FR) so that members of the public can consider it and send their comments to us.
Step 2:
We consider all the comments, revise the regulation accordingly, and issue a final rule. This final rule is also published in the FR.
- FR notices related to the environment are available on EPA's Web site. Most of these are notices issued by EPA.
- A complete record of FR notices issued by the entire federal government is available from the GPO.
Step 3:
Once a regulation is completed and has been printed in the FR as a final rule, it is "codified" by being published in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The CFR is the official record of all regulations created by the federal government. It is divided into 50 volumes, called titles, each of which focuses on a particular area. Almost all environmental regulations appear in Title 40. The CFR is revised yearly, with one fourth of the volumes updated every three months. Title 40 is revised every July 1.
- CFR Title 40: Protection of Environment
- Code of Federal Regulations database - a searchable database of the entire CFR from GPO.
Planning for the Future
Twice a year, each federal agency publishes a comprehensive report that describes all the regulations it is working on or has recently finished. These are published, usually in April and October, as the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
Included in this document is EPA's Regulatory Agenda. It describes regulations and certain major policy documents that we reasonably expect to issue in proposed or final form during the upcoming fiscal year. Every Fall, the Agenda includes a Regulatory Plan. Our Regulatory Plans the subset of Agenda items that are the most important regulatory and deregulatory activities - the activities that embody the core of our regulatory priorities.
You can use our Agendas and Plans to track what we're working on and anticipate what regulations you might wish to comment on.
- EPA's latest Regulatory Plan & Agenda at Regulations.gov
- EPA's Regulatory Plan and Agenda Books
- RegInfo's Searchable Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions
How You Can Get Involved
There are lots of ways you can help us write our regulations or otherwise help us protect the environment:
