Once you have found relevant regulations in the CFR, you may wish to understand why the regulation appears the way that it does. Compiling a regulatory history may help. That is, just as one can turn to legislative history as a possible means for understanding legislative intent as a tool in statutory interpretation, so can a researcher try to piece together an agency's intent.
Steps (working backward in time):
- Look up CFR citation
- Look for Source section
- Placement differs between print, Westlaw, and Lexis
- Lists different Fed. Reg. rules that led to current regulation
- Look up the relevant Fed. Reg. citation that led to the portion of the current regulation that interests you
- This is the final rule which contains the preamble laying out the agency's thinking
- It references the proposed rule
- Look up the proposed rule
- Review the preamble laying out the agency's initial thinking and compare
- Compare the proposed rule to the final rule
- See if you can locate comments submitted to the agency (may be through Regulations.gov)