Apart from statutes passed by the General Assembly, the Pennsylvania Code and Pennsylvania Bulletin make up the existing body of official Pennsylvania documents having force of law.
The Pennsylvania Code is the official codification of rules and regulations issued by Commonwealth agencies. (Note that in Pennsylvania, regulations are called the "Code;" in other states, the "Code" may refer to the state's statutes.)
The weekly Pennsylvania Bulletin is the temporary supplement to the Pennsylvania Code, printing changes as soon as they occur. These changes then are permanently codified in the Code. The Pennsylvania Bulletin also publishes Governor's Executive Orders, state contract notices, summaries of enacted statutes, changes to statewide and local court rules, and more.
Generally, an agency wishing to adopt, amend, or repeal regulations first must publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking contains the full text of the proposed rule or amendment, the agency contact person, a fiscal note required by law, and background information. The agency must then allow sufficient time for public comment before taking final action. An adopted proposal must be published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin before it can take effect.
The Pennsylvania Bulletin online includes the following: Statewide and local court rules; the Governor's Proclamations and Executive Orders; Actions by the General Assembly; Rulemakings by State agencies; Proposed Rulemakings by State agencies; and State agency notices.
The Pennsylvania Code online includes the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin by the executive departments and agencies of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
In order to find the current and operative version of a Pennsylvania regulation, follow these steps:
Step 1: Search the Pennsylvania Code for relevant regulations. All electronic versions of the Code allow researchers to browse the table of contents and perform keyword searchers. Researchers can also browse the print version of the Pennsylvania Code. The print version of the Code no longer includes an index.
Step 2: Note the currency date of your version of the Pennsylvania Code. This information is posted on the first page of the PA Code and Bulletin website, and within each section of the the subscription databases.
Step 3: If any issues of the Pennsylvania Bulletin have been published since the currency date of the Code that you are using, check those issues to see if they include any information relevant to your research interests. If a final regulation has been published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, it is considered valid law regardless whether it has yet been incorporated into the Pennsylvania Code.
Step 4: Look up the regulation in a subscription database to see if there have been any significant court rulings regarding it. If a court has overturned the regulation or interpreted it narrowly, there will be a red or yellow flag to indicate this. The subscription databases will also flag a regulation if a proposed amendment is pending.
The above steps will help you find a regulation and confirm that it is still in force. If you are doing in-depth research of a particular regulation (for example, if you want to see public comments that were submitted in response to a proposed regulation, or want to better understand why the agency proposed the regulation), go to the Find a Regulation section of the PA Independent Regulatory Review Commission's website. The IRRC has other documents that are not published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, including Regulatory Analysis Forms, which contain significant information about regulatory intent and agency decisionmaking. (See more information in agencies tab.)