USCCAN is the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News, a publication that contains certain collections of Congressional and Administrative materials. USCCAN covers from 1948-present. The publication is released in monthly softcover pamphlets and after a session of Congress comes to an end, the pamphlets are organized into a hardcover bound volumes. USCCAN contains (1) the full text of federal laws, (2) certain committee reports, (3) Federal Regulations, (4) Presidential Signing Statements and Proclamations, (5) Executive Orders, and more. All materials contained in USCCAN are organized in chronological order.
USCCAN monthly pamphlets contain (1) Public Laws (listed in numerical order with references to what page of the USCCAN the law appears), (2) USC and USCA classifications (references the Public Law Number to the appropriate Statute Section), (3) USC and USCA Sections Amended, Repealed, etc. (references the appropriate Statute Section to the Public Law Number AND the Statutes at Large citation), (4) Legislative History, (5) Signing Statements, (6) Bills and Joint Resolutions, (7) Federal Regulations, (8) Presidential Proclamations, (9) Executive Orders, (10) Major Bills Pending, and (11) Popular Name Acts. In addition to each section, there is also a Cumulative Index by Subject section.
USCCAN's bound volumes contain all of the information, minus Federal Regulations, that is contained in the monthly editions. The Reference tables are located in the last bound volume of each Congressional Session.
Public Laws Section - Is organized by Public Law Number and contains the titles, bill numbers, relevant dates, the public law text, citation to the USC, citation to the Statutes at Large, and a short legislative history with citation.
Legislative History Section - Is organized by Public Law Number and contains the title, public law number, relevant dates, bill numbers, Congressional Record volume number, Statutes at Large citation, and committee names and report numbers.
Organization of Bound Volumes - Generally, each sets of bound volumes will be organized in the following order: (1) the first few volumes will contain the public laws and be titled as "LAWS," (2) the next volume(s) will contain the "Legislative Histories," and (3) the last volume may contain the end of the legislative histories and will contain the Presidential Proclamations, Executive Orders, Tables and Index for the set.
On Westlaw, click on "Statutes & Court Rules" under "All Content." There will be a column on the right side of that screen labeled "Tools & Resources." Click on "Legislative History."
Next, click on "Legislative History--United States Code." This will take you to the database that contains the USCCAN information.
USCCAN is available in Print and Online. The Print version is organized by Congressional Session with the current session available in softcover monthly issued pamphlets, and prior sessions available in hardcover bound volumes. The Online version is accessible via Westlaw.
With USCCAN you can begin your legislative history research with various starting information.; This includes Public Law Numbers, Bill Numbers, USC and USCA sections, and even Popular Names. For prior sessions of Congress, you will need to reference the hardcover bound volumes. For the current session of Congress, you will need to look to the softcover monthly pamphlets.
Remember that USCCAN coverage only goes back to 1948.
If you have a Public Law Number, you can use USCCAN to tie it to the relevant Bill Number, or any applicable United States Code section, Statutes at Large Citation, Signing Statements, Presidential Proclamations, Executive Orders, Popular Names, etc. Additionally, the Public Law Number can be used to access the Congressional Information Service (CIS) for all of its available references and resources.
