What is the FAA's official outlet for informing the public of permanent, systemic changes? When the FAA changes a regulation or rule, such as the recent change in April that student pilot certificates will be a plastic pilot certificate without an expiration date... (This page)


  Student pilot and medical certificate are no longer the same document, therefore, refer to 14 CFR 61.23 for complete information on duration of a medical certificate.
  
  After April 1, 2016, Student pilot certificates do not expire; the certificate will be surrendered and superseded upon successful completion of the higher certification. Student pilot certificates issued prior to April 1, 2016, will expire according to their expiration date, either 24 or 60 months from the date of issuance.


... what is the standard, official, go-to document to keep abreast of the existence of these new changes?  How often is is released or how are we notified of its release if it is irregular?

This question is not about NOTAMS which cover temporary changes, or changes that will later be added to a document with regularly occurring updates at known intervals such as those for approach charts.

This question is also not asking about the contents of advisory circulars; however, I would view an update to an advisory circular or release of a new one as being a pertinent, permanent change considering many of them have been around since the 1970s and contain official FAA information on various topics.

So, to be totally clear, I am asking how we are notified when there are changes and where they are located not necessarily what the specific, full-text contents of the changes are.

The changes could be to such things as:


Handbooks and manuals
Federal Aviation Regulations
Advisory Circulars
Practical Test Standards
The Airman Information Manual
FAA knowledge exam contents
The FAA has multiple email groups you can subscribe to.

https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USAFAA/subscriber/new?topic_id=USAFAA

Click the link and you will be brought to a page where you can provide your email address.





You will then be brought to a page where you can select the email groups you want to subscribe to.