From Where Do US and Canadian Regulations Come?

Ever wonder how we make these government regulations that mold our lives? Most of us know that the US Congress or Canadian Parliament pass laws ("The So-And-So Act"), and the Executive agencies enforce government regulations. And in turn the Judiciaries (courts) of both countries adjudicate alleged infractions of these. What's the relationship between all this?

Simple: most of us are affected by the various regulations that are enforced, which are the ways in the laws are implemented by the different executive agencies (such as the US Department of Transportation, US Environmental Protection Agency, Transport Canada, or Environment Canada). While the general and permanent laws appear in bodies like the US Code, executive agencies use regulations to enforce them.

US Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)
The US regulations are posted in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), and updated annually. Each federal executive agency has its own portion. The titles are broken out by topic. As a result, some agencies share a title; for example, Title 10 covers Energy, so both the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory have parts in it. As shown below, Title 29 covers the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

US CFR Structure
Each Title is composed of parts, and each Part has sections. In turn, each section has paragraphs, as shown below. Here's the way to reference one of OSHA's training requirements in its Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) standard.

Updating the US CFRs
Because the CFR is updated annually but agencies published Notices of Proposed Rulemaking and Final Rulemakings to their regulations daily, the US publishes these changes to the regulations (as well as meeting times or requests for comments from the public) in the daily Federal Register. This creates an overall flow from Act (which becomes part of the US Code) to Federal Register publication of the agency regulations to enforce the law, and then from Federal Register publication to inclusion in the next annual print run of that title of the CFR.

Canadian Gazette
Canada has an equivalent to the daily US Federal Register, called the Canada Gazette.