Except as provided in § 19.2 of this subchapter for Executive orders and proclamations, each agency submitting a document to be filed and published in the Federal Register shall send an original and two duplicate originals or certified copies. 1 However, if the document is printed or processed on both sides, one of the copies sent by the agency must be a collated, single-sided copy.

(a) The Director of the Federal Register will not accept a document for filing and publication if it combines material that must appear under more than one category in the Federal Register. For example, a document may not contain both rulemaking and notice of proposed rulemaking material.

(b) Where two related documents are to be published in the same Federal Register issue, the agency may insert a cross-reference in each document.

(a) Each document authorized or required by law to be filed for public inspection with the Office of the Federal Register and published in the Federal Register shall be sent to the Director of the Federal Register.

(b) Except for cases involving special handling or treatment, there is no need for a letter of transmittal for a document submitted for filing and Federal Register publication.

(c) Receipt dates are determined at the time a signed original and clear and legible copies are received.

(a) A printed or processed document may be accepted for filing for public inspection and publication if it is on bond or similar quality paper, legible, and free of adhesive or correction tape. 2

(b) A document in the form of a letter or press release may not be accepted for filing for public inspection or publication in the rules and regulations, proposed rules, or notices categories of the Federal Register.

(c) Original documents submitted by telecommunication and authenticated by digital signatures consistent with applicable Federal standards and Office of the Federal Register technical specifications may be accepted for publication. 3

The certified copies or duplicate originals of each document must be submitted with the original. Each copy or duplicate must be entirely clear and legible.

Each copy of each document submitted for filing and publication, except a Presidential document or a duplicate original, must be certified as follows:

The original and each duplicate original document must be signed in ink, with the name and title of the official signing the document typed or stamped beneath the signature. Initialed or impressed signatures will not be accepted. Documents submitted under § 18.4(c) may be authenticated as original documents by digital signatures.

Use of a seal on an original document or certified copy is optional with the issuing agency.

Each document submitted by an agency for filing and publication shall conform to the current edition of the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual in punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and other matters of style.

(a) If it is necessary to publish a form or illustration, a clear and legible original form or illustration, or a clear and completely legible reproduction approximately 8 1/2 by 11 inches, shall be included in the original document and each certified copy.

(b) A document that includes tabular material may be assigned to the deferred publication schedule. See § 17.7.

(a) Each agency submitting a proposed or final rule document for publication shall prepare a preamble which will inform the reader, who is not an expert in the subject area, of the basis and purpose for the rule or proposal.

(b) The preamble shall be in the following format and contain the following information:

(c) The agency may include the following information in the preamble, as applicable:

(1) A discussion of the background and major issues involved;

(2) In the case of a final rule, any significant differences between it and the proposed rule;

(3) A response to substantive public comments received; and

(4) Any other information the agency considers appropriate.

(a) A document that has been filed for public inspection with the Office of the Federal Register but not yet published, may be withdrawn from publication or corrected by the submitting agency. Withdrawals or minor corrections may be made with a timely letter, signed by a duly authorized representative of the agency. Extensive corrections may require agency withdrawal of the document from publication.

(b) Both the originally filed document and the withdrawing or correcting letter shall remain on file. The original document and the withdrawing or correcting letter will be retained by the Office of the Federal Register after the public inspection period expires.

(a) Typographical or clerical errors made in the printing of the Federal Register shall be corrected by insertion of an appropriate notation or a reprinting in the Federal Register published without further agency documentation, if the Director of the Federal Register determines that—

(1) The error would tend to confuse or mislead the reader; or

(2) The error would affect text subject to codification.

(b) The issuing agency shall review published documents and notify the Office of the Federal Register of printing errors found in published documents.

(c) If the error was in the document as submitted by the agency, the issuing agency must prepare and submit for publication a correction document.

Agencies may reinstate regulations removed from the Code of Federal Regulations data base which have expired by their own terms only by republishing the regulations in full text in the Federal Register.

(a) Each document submitted for publication in the Federal Register that includes an effective date or time period should either set forth a date certain or a time period measured by a certain number of days after publication in the Federal Register. When a document sets forth a time period measured by a certain number of days after publication, Office of the Federal Register staff will compute the date to be inserted in the document as set forth in paragraph (b) of this section.

(b) Dates certain will be computed by counting the day after the publication day as one, and by counting each succeeding day, including Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. However, where the final count would fall on a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday, the date certain will be the next succeeding Federal business day.

(c) In the event an effective date is dependent upon Congressional action, or an act of Congress or a dispositive Federal court decision establishes or changes the effective date of an agency's regulation, the issuing agency shall promptly publish a document in the Federal Register announcing the effective date.

(a) Federal Register documents. Each agency that submits a document that is published in the Rules and Regulations section or the Proposed Rules section of the Federal Register shall—

(1) Include a list of index terms for each Code of Federal Regulations part affected by the document; and

(2) Place the list of index terms as the last item in the Supplementary Information portion of the preamble for the document.

(b) Federal Register Thesaurus. To prepare its list of index terms, each agency shall use terms contained in the Federal Register Thesaurus of Indexing Terms. Agencies may include additional terms not contained in the Thesaurus as long as the appropriate Thesaurus terms are also used. Copies of the Federal Register Thesaurus of Indexing Terms are available from the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. 20408.