system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is the difference between the United States Code (USC) and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and how do they relate to each other?
gpt
As you may know, Congress is the legislative branch of government, and passes laws, in the form of acts of Congress. The executive branch is charged with carrying out those laws. To carry out a law, it must be interpreted; executive agencies publish their interpretation of the law, and what people must do to to follow the law to that agency's satisfaction, in the form of regulations. The power of federal law is limited by the Constitution, but the power of regulations is normally limited to the statute that the agency claims authority under, so the latter is much narrower.

The United States Code was compiled as a way to more easily understand the current state of federal law. Before codification, if you wanted to know the law, you had to look up the specific act of Congress *and* every later act that amended the original. The U.S. Code is ordered by subject and amendments are incorporated into the text, so it's much easier to use.

The Code of Federal Regulations follows the same concept, but for federal regulations instead of law. Instead of going to the *Federal Register* to see what every agency has officially announced on a subject, and then trying to determine the current state of regulations, you can more easily look it up in the CFR.