Situation Remains Unsettled

Detailed guidance, called implementing issuances, is still to come on the NSPS personnel rules and is subject to continued collaboration with unions. Meanwhile, a union-sponsored suit focusing on the labor relations and appeals rights provisions of NSPS remains pending before a federal court, with a court action still expected before March 1, the earliest date those parts could be put into effect. A judge’s decision for unions in a similar case involving the Department of Homeland Security resulted in putting the entire set of planned changes there on hold since union rights are intertwined with design of that system. Whether a judge’s ruling in favor of the DoD unions would have the same effect there remains to be seen.