Statutes: Laws passed by the State Legislature that deal with specific situations.
Regulations: Laws that a state regulatory agency has adopted. For example, in the Florida Administrative Code, you will find Department 64, the Department of Health. Under the Dept. of Health is Division 64B3, which has to do with the Board of Clinical Laboratory Personnel. This Division has 13 chapters setting forth requirements or regulations concerning clinical laboratory personnel. Likewise, Department 59 is the Agency for Healthcare Administration. Division 59A under this Agency involves health facility and agency licensing.
Note-- The purpose of a regulation is to make a statute more specific and hopefully more workable. The Legislature empowers state agencies to adopt regulations because statutes are usually very general in their wording. Do not be mistaken in stating that agency regulations are less worthy of attention than legislative statutes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Regulations carry the same force and effect as statutes, and the violation of a regulation could be just as severe as the violation of a statute.
It has become popular in the vocabulary to refer to statutes as "laws" and regulations as "rules."
