These documents are issued both as a means of implementing the President's constitutional and statutory responsibilities, and as a means of managing the operations of the executive branch of the government. The rules and regulations section contains final, legally binding, regulatory documents. A proposed rule is an announcement to the public that a change to the CFR is under consideration. The purpose of publishing proposed rules is to enable interested persons to participate in the rule making process by submitting comments prior to adoption of the final rule. Most proposed rules suggest changes to agency regulations in the CFR and request public comment on those suggested changes.
Many agencies voluntarily publish proposed changes for the expressed purpose of soliciting comments.
The heading and preamble format are the same for both proposed and final rules. Within the preamble for proposed rules, an address and deadline date are generally provided for submission of comments. The notices section contains documents other than rules or proposed rules that may be of interest to the public. Each meeting notice is numbered, and a table of contents arranged by agency name and item number appears at the beginning of the section. You will perform the most effective searches if you highlight all three Federal Register boxes.