Since modern building regulations are very complex, their development and effective maintenance are far beyond the technical and financial capabilities of most jurisdictions.
This method allows the pooling of financial and intellectual resources to produce codes that remain current and technically sound.
A number of federal agencies—including the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Park Service, the Department of State and the Forest Service—use private-sector model codes for projects funded by the federal government.
In the wake of the 2002 case Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l, Inc.,[1] the organization Public Resource has published a substantial portion of the enacted building codes on-line, and they are available as .pdf's which are freely downloadable.
[2] The Veeck case has had the effect of placing the text of the adopted model codes into the public domain, although the model codes themselves, until they are adopted into law, are not in the public domain.