The executive branch
public policy
What a government has decided to do about a problem, expressed through statutes, regulations, budgets, and enforcement choices taken together.
In full
Policy is broader than law. A statute may say almost nothing while the operative decisions live in a regulation, a funding level, or a decision about what to enforce. Reading policy therefore means reading all four, which is why an agency's budget request and its enforcement statistics can be more revealing than the law it operates under.
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A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.