In Massachusetts, the Code of Massachusetts Regulations (CMR) is the complete set of Administrative Law (regulations) promulgated by state agencies.
The CFR is divided into 50 subject matter titles which coincide with the titles of the Federal law (U.S. Code). It is often asked what the phrase “reserved” means in both the CFR and CMR. “Reserved” holds a place for future regulations that may be inserted into that location.
If one wanted to see the regulations for the Affordable Care Act, commonly called “Obamacare”, you would do the following: go to www.fdsys.gov
- click on Advanced Search
- click on Code of Federal Regulations and the word ADD
- type in "affordable care act" in the lower right, the myriad list of regulations will be available.
To understand the CFR citations, for example 45 CFR section 158.150, is described below:
- The Title is a numeric value to the left of “CFR” (Title 45 is cited)
- The Section/Subpart is a section number to the right of CFR. (section 158.150)
The CFR on line has been authenticated by the Superintendent of Documents of the United States Government Printing Office and has been available on line since 1996.
We invite you to the State Library in room 341 of the State House from 9 am to 5 pm on Mondays through Fridays to access the CFR on one of our computers.
