In doing some research for my Part 97 and Part 15 posts, I was reminded of the Code of Federal Regulations. While many people may have heard of it and know more about it than I do, there are some of you who have possibly never heard of it. If you haven’t heard of it or have heard of it but have never actually looked at it, take a few moments after reading this post and poke around to see what kind of interesting tidbits you can find.
The Federal Code of Regulations is “the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government” or, more basically, the collection of the laws and rules published by government agencies. These regulations contain almost everything from the structure of the agency and the rules that the agency must follow to the rules that are set and enforced by a given agency.
In it you will find rules regarding the US Postal Service, the FDA, Education, and many other government agencies. Each of these different areas is regarded as a “Title” for example, the Postal Service is listed under Title 39, Education is Title 34, and Telecommunications (the FCC, including amateur radio) is under Title 47. Furthermore, each title is broken down into different “parts” that contain the specifics of a particular aspect of that agency’s responsibility. For example, ham radio is covered in Part 97 of the “title” dealing with telecommunications and the FCC (Title 47) and Part 97 of Title 47 contains only information relating to amateur radio.
The Code of Federal Regulations is available through GPO Access which is a service of the U.S. Government Printing Office.
To view the main page of the Code of Federal Regulations, click here. From there you can browse the CFR including archives back to 1997 or view the e-CFR which is a “currently updated” “editorial compilation of CFR material and Federal Register amendments produced by the National Archives and Records Administration’s Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and the Government Printing Office” that is a little bit more viewer friendly. However, the e-CFR is “not an official legal edition” of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Now go ahead and poke around the Code of Federal Regulations and share with all of us (via the comments) rules that you find that fit one of the following three criteria:
1. Explains why something is done the way it is (like pointing out that you put your garbage out by the curb because city ordinance xxx.yyy.zz.t says so) - this might be interesting because there are things that we all do and/or know we are supposed to do but don’t really know the reference for this rule or where it comes from
2. You never knew existed (like pointing out a city ordinance that limits the dates when it is allowable to have christmas lights on your house) - this will be interesting because I’m sure there are rules out there that people don’t even realize they are breaking because many people don’t even know the rule exists
3. You find to be totally absurd (like if there were a law making it illegal to have your shoes untied in public) - as scrutinized as the CFR is, I don’t think there will be a lot of these, but there may be a few
If there are any others that you find that you feel are worth sharing, feel free to mention them in the comments as well. Oh, and when sharing one of these rules with us, please include the reference (ie. title x, part y, section z) as well as a short snippet/overview of the rule with your comment/opinion. This will make it easier for the rest of us to see what you are talking about and join in the conversation 
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