New Database: ProQuest Regulatory Insight

The law library has added a new subscription of materials related to regulatory law that is now available campus-wide. ProQuest Regulatory Insight complements the ProQuest Legislative Insight database by providing collections of federal regulatory materials – such as proposed and final rules and executive orders – that follow from Congressional legislation.

The database can retrieve documents from the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations, but is most useful for finding statutes that spur regulation in many different federal agencies. These entries, called regulatory histories, link a public law to related items published in the Federal Register, all on one web page. For example, the regulatory history for P.L. 111-148, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, pulls up reams of information about rules passed not only by the Department of Health and Human Safety, but also by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor. All rules published in the Federal Register contain links to where those rules are codified in the C.F.R. 

While there are many excellent online sources for locating items in the Federal Register and in federal regulatory law generally (such as the Federal Register website, Regulations.gov, and e-CFR), Regulatory Insight works particularly well when you are interested in the scope of regulation relating to a particular federal statute.

To help you get acclimated to the new database, ProQuest has provided a useful guide to using the product that includes information about the database’s coverage and help running effective searches. Accessing Regulatory Insight is easy: from the law library’s Legal Databases page, select “Legislation & Government” or scroll down to click on the link to enter the database. 

And as always, if you need assistance using this or any other law library resource, ask a law librarian!