FederalRegister.gov Now Integrated with Regulations.gov

Michael White of the Office of the Federal Register has posted In Synch With Regulations.gov, on the OFR Blog.

Here is a summary of the post:

FederalRegister.gov (FR2) is now tightly integrated with the electronic dockets on Regulations.gov. Comments submitted to Regulations.gov and processed for public display are now accessible from FR2. We also added connections to “Supporting/Related Materials” maintained in the dockets.

For more information, please see the complete post.

HT @dan_munz.

Federal Register API Now Available

An application programming interface (API) is now available for Federal Register data from FederalRegister.gov (also known as Federal Register 2.0), according to a 1 August 2011 post by Michael White of the Office of the Federal Register, on the OFR Blog.

According to the post, the API is RESTful, and provides access to metadata and full text data in JSON format. Via the API, data are accessible by agency, by document number, or by advanced search query.

A Ruby version of the API client is also available as a Ruby gem, on GitHub and RubyGems.

Some comments about the API are available at Hacker News.

For more information, please see the announcement.

HT @silona.

Federal Register 2.0 Now Available

Federal Register 2.0 (FR 2.0) — a new online version of the Federal Register, featuring Web 2.0 functions enabling users to comment, plain language summaries of regulations, and access by subject — is now available.

Click here to access the FR 2.0 source code on Github. HT @bethnoveck and @govpulse.

Click here for a video describing the history of the Federal Register and the features of FR 2.0.

Click here for background information on FR 2.0.

Of particular interest to those interested in open government data efforts is that FR 2.0 appears to include features and functions that were originally developed as part of innovative nongovernmental erulemaking efforts, such as the University at Albany’s DeER (Deliberative E-Rulemaking) Project, the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy‘s FedThread, the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative‘s Regulation Room, and WestEd‘s GovPulse. Some of GovPulse’s innovative Federal Register-related technology was developed as part of The Sunlight Foundation’s 2009 Apps for America Challenge. Click here for a video describing the Federal Register-related innovations developed through the Apps for America Challenge.

These projects arose because in 2009 the Office of the Federal Register and the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) began making the Federal Register available online in XML for free of charge bulk access on GPO’s FDsys. This free bulk access to legal information enabled nongovernmental developers to create innovative systems and tools for use in connection with that information. With FR 2.0, the U.S. federal government is reincorporating some of these innovative systems and tools, to enhance public access to the law and public participation in agency rulemaking and other aspects of federal public policy.

This kind of socially beneficial collaboration between government as data provider and civil society organizations as technology innovators is consistent with the model proposed by David Robinson et al. in their paper, Government Data and the Invisible Hand, 11 Yale Journal of Law and Technology 160-175 (2009) (Issue No. 2).

One statement in the video describing new features of FR 2.0 seems questionable. The video seems to suggest that the “Summary” field in each proposed or final rule is a feature new to FR 2.0. However, the “Summary” field appears for many years to have been a required field for proposed or final rules published in the Federal Register. See, e.g., Federal Register Document Drafting Handbook 1-6, 1-8 (1998), and this proposed rule from 1998. I’ve sent an email to the Office of the Federal Register asking for clarification of this point; I’ll post any response I receive.

Federal Register 2.0: Release of Unofficial Prototype

An updated online version of the Federal Register, called Federal Register 2.0 (FR 2.0), will be introduced on 15 July 2010, at an event at the Office of the Federal Register, in Washington, DC, according to a 12 July 2010 press release issued by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

According to the press release, on 26 July 2010, FR 2.0 will be made available — “as an unofficial prototype” — to the public at FederalRegister.gov.

The press release states that the purpose of the public release is “to gather public feedback,” and that an official version of FR 2.0 could be made public sometime in 2011.

The press release provides the following additional background on FR 2.0:

The concept of FR 2.0 originated with Open Government advocates, and was later advanced by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In technology terms, FR 2.0 uses the bulk XML from GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) to present regulatory material in new configurations. The applications on the site are built from open source code, which will be returned to the open source community for unrestricted use in other applications. [...]

The FR 2.0 web site will be similar to a daily web newspaper, with a clear layout and new tools to guide readers to the most popular topics and relevant documents. The site will display individual news sections for Money, Environment, World, Science & Technology, Business & Industry, and Health & Public Welfare. FR 2.0 will have greatly improved navigation and search tools and will highlight each agency’s significant rules. The new web site takes advantage of social media and integrates seamlessly with Regulations.gov and the Unified Agenda to make it easy for users to submit comments directly into the official e-Rulemaking docket, and view the history of rulemaking activity through a regulatory timeline.

HT @AdvertisingLaw and beSpacific.

Garvin on eRulemaking & eRegulation Systems

Peggy Garvin of Garvin Information Consulting has published The Government Domain: New & Free Regulations Trackers, on LLRX. The post describes major online sources of fulltext U.S. federal regulations, including eRulemaking services maintained by government and non-government entities. The sources covered include:

• Regulations.gov, the U.S. Government’s principal eRulemaking service, produced by the Office of the Federal Register;
• RegInfo.gov, a U.S. Government service;
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Rulemaking Gateway;
• FedThread, produced by Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy;
• Justia Regulation Tracker, produced by Justia;

• OpenRegs.com, produced by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center;
• Regulation Room, produced by the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative (CeRI).

Garvin notes that the flourishing of non-governmental services is due to the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO)’s   provision of free bulk access to the Federal Register marked up in XML.

A notable related project is the partnership
between the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School and GPO to provide enhanced online access to the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in XML.

The non-government services that Garvin describes exemplify the kinds of innovation that the Law.gov legal open government data project seeks to foster.

 
   

CFR in XML Available for Bulk Download from GPO

[NOTE: Updated on 27 December 2009 to add the final four paragraphs.]

The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) for 2007-2009 is now available for bulk download in XML from U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) FDsys. Click here for the user guide.

Why is this of potential interest to the legal community? First, attorneys, legal IT personnel, and law librarians can download the CFR in XML and process it so that they, their colleagues, and the communities they serve can use it free of charge, without incurring the costs of using a for-fee online service. The XML markup enables the code to be output in a wide range of formats or integrated with a number of other information resources.

Second, many organizations that publish legal information for free on the Internet or at low cost — such as the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University and Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy and its FedThread federal regulations publishing project — can download the CFR, process it, and make it available to the legal community and the public. This should result in greater competition in the market for legal information and ultimately lower costs for users of legal information.

This is the second major legal information access initiative at GPO this year. Earlier in 2009, GPO began making available the Federal Register for bulk download in XML.

These data access initiatives are consistent with such law-related Open Government Data activities as the U.S. Government’s Open Government Directive and the Law.gov project, which will be the subject of a number of public meetings throughout the U.S. in the first half of 2010.