Every day, the President of the United States is faced with scores of decisions, each with important consequences for working families. To provide the President with the support that he or she needs to govern effectively, the Executive Office of the President (EOP) was created in 1939 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The EOP has responsibility for tasks ranging from communicating the President’s message to the American people to promoting our trade interests abroad.

GovInfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch. GovInfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.

The President of the United States manages the operations of the Executive branch of Government through Executive orders. After the President signs an Executive order, the White House sends it to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR). The OFR numbers each order consecutively as part of a series and publishes it in the daily Federal Register shortly after receipt. For a table of Executive orders that are specific to federal agency rulemaking, see https://go.usa.gov/xv9cZ. This page contains documents that have been published in the Federal Register. Because the White House cannot deliver a document to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) until after the President signs a document, there is always a delay (of at least one day, typically of several days) between when the President signs a document and when it is published. Once received, OFR gives presidential documents priority processing and documents will appear on public inspection the business day before publication. If you are looking for a recently-signed Presidential document, you may wish to check the White House website.

Congress.gov is the official website for federal legislative information. Access coverage of legislative information available at Congress.gov here: https://www.congress.gov/about/coverage-dates

FDSys provides free access to publications from all three branches of government. Publications available at FDSys are official and authentic.

The performance of the United States Government and the security and economic well-being of the American people have suffered because of the intensifying partisanship that has afflicted political processes and societal debates in recent years. This partisanship frequently has had the effect of subordinating good governance to political combat and locking leaders into inflexible positions. We have seen innumerable examples of both parties failing the most basic tests of governance, including the 2013 government shutdown, the inability to enact a long-term deficit reduction program, reliance on the fiscal cliff sequester, the near abandonment of a bill-by-bill appropriations process, and repeated failures to pass an annual budget resolution. Faced with reflexive partisan roadblocks, Congress also has frequently retreated from legislating on foreign policy, with negative consequences for national security. Treaty ratification during the Obama Administration has come to a near standstill. For many years, comprehensive Foreign Affairs Authorization bills have received low priority for floor time and leadership attention. Congress is largely failing to pursue systematic and timely reviews of the most strategically important questions in foreign policy. In the process, it is weakening its capacity to function as either a partner or as a constructive critic of the Executive Branch in foreign affairs. Thus, "the Lugar Center is dedicated to incentivizing public officials to put governance first, fostering more meaningful policy debates, encouraging civility in political speech, and promoting structural reforms that can reduce partisanship."

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the public policy research arm of Congress. This legislative branch agency works exclusively for Members of Congress, their committees and their staff. This collection includes CRS reports from the mid-1970's through the present.
The information on this site is compiled and made available as a public service by the Government Documents Department at the UNT Libraries.

A basic outline of steps and resources for locating federal legislative histories from the Library of Congress

A guide for understanding and finding federal statutes.

Information about U.S. regulations and related publications.