Government and Legal Information - ChE 333T - Engineering Communication - LibGuides at University of Texas at Austin

Government Agencies

Here's a selection of important government agencies that are in charge of regulating and monitoring specific industries as well as overseeing the environment and public health. Government agencies are a good source of reliable information on these topics.

Chemical Safety Board
The CSB is an independent, non-regulatory federal agency whose mission is to "drive chemical safety change through independent investigation to protect people and the environment." It conducts root cause investigations of selected chemical incidents at industrial facilities but has no direct regulatory powers. Find about about completed and current investigations and see final reports here.
Environmental Protection Agency
The EPA is the premier government research and regulatory agency for environmental issues. While it has an excellent corps of dedicated scientists, beware of political bias in its public policy and outreach roles.
Occupational Safety & Health Administration
OSHA is the primary federal agency overseeing workplace safety.
Dept. of Agriculture (USDA)
Food and Drug Administration
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Transportation Safety Board
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
U.S. Energy Information Administration

Regulations and Legal Information

You may need to know about court decisions, census information, or energy statistics.

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Access to important legal databases. Includes advanced search features.
Updated regularly. Provides a collection of legal periodicals, reproducing the original image of each article. Includes over 1,200 law review journals containing more than 600,000 articles from 21,000 volumes.
Coverage begins from the first issue of each journal to roughly one year prior to the current year.
All journal content is in PDF format, so the pages appear just as they do in the printed version of the journal. Additionally, charts, graphs, photographs and similar non-text items are reproduced as they originally appeared in print.
Also provides access to the following:
- Federal Register
- Statutes at Large (the official source for the laws and resolutions passed by Congress, browseable by volume, popular name or treaty)
- U.S. Supreme Court Library
Access to this resource is funded by the Tarlton Law Library at the Jamail Center for Legal Research.

Restricted to current UT students, faculty and staff. Not available to Official UT Retirees

Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)
(Also see access through "HeinOnline.") The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) annual edition is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the "Federal Register" by the departments and agencies of the Federal Government. It is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to Federal regulation.
Federal Register
(Also see access through "HeinOnline.")
Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) , the Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents.

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Includes law reviews and information from state and federal courts.
Updated continually. Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an interface that offers discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
Effective January 1, 2018, Nexis Uni™ replaces LexisNexis Academic.

UT Law Library - Environmental Law Guide
Guidance from staff at the UT Law Library.

For (much more) expert help with legal sources, you may want to seek help from staff at the UT Law Library.

Government Information

For a more detailed introduction to government resources:

Government Documents & Information
by Bill Kopplin Last Updated Jan 12, 2024 203 views this year