PREFACE-1976 EDITION This ninth edition of the United States Code was prepared and published pursuant to section 285b of Title 2 of the Code. It contains a consolidation and codification of all the general and permanent laws of the United States which are in force on January 3, 1977. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 1976 ed." Previous editions were published in 1926, 1934, 1940, 1946, 1952, 1958, 1964, and 1970. Inasmuch as many of the general and permanent laws which are required to be incorporated in this Code are inconsistent, redundant, and obsolete, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel is engaged in a comprehensive project of revising and enacting the Code into law, title by title. Since 1947, bills have been enacted to revise, codify and enact into law Titles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 17, 18, 23, 28, 32, 35, 37, 38, 39, and 44. In addition, bills relating to other titles are also being prepared for introduction. When this work is completed all the titles of the Code will be legal evidence of the general and permanent law and recourse to the numerous volumes of the Statutes at Large for this purpose will be unnecessary. The title and chapter structure of the 1970 edition, together with Supplement V thereto, has been substantially preserved, the only changes made having been necessitated by the enactment of legislation since 1970. This edition continues the practice of setting out notes captioned "Section referred to in other sections". These notes have been inserted following each section that is referred to in the text of another section, indicating the section that contains the internal reference. In addition, there is included in this edition, for the first time, a comprehensive Table of Internal References which appears in the Tables volume. This Table consolidates all internal references contained in the individual "Section referred to in other sections" notes. This edition has been prepared and published under the supervision of Edward F. Willett, Jr., Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives, with the assistance of the West Publishing Company, of St. Paul, Minnesota, which assisted in preparing all prior editions and supplements of the Code. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the cooperation by all who have helped in this work, particularly by the staffs of the publishing company and of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, and by the Government Printing Office. WASHINGTON, D.C., January 4, 1977. Thomas O Neill d Speaker of the House of Representatives Page VII |