An environmental advocacy group is following through on the ultimatum it set last fall, suing the Office of Personnel Management in an effort to force the government’s HR agency to implement a 7-year-old law aimed at limiting agencies’ ability to put federal workers accused of misconduct on prolonged stints of administrative leave.
In 2016, Congress enacted the Administrative Leave Act as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. The measure attempts to reduce agencies’ propensity to place federal workers who are under investigation into employment limbo—paid but unable to work—for long stretches of time.
The following year, OPM proposed regulations to implement the law’s provisions, as well as create an avenue for a suspended employee to return to work via telework as investigations proceed, but never finalized them. Last fall, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a petition that OPM issue new regulations to implement the law and warned if the agency failed to do so within 60 days, PEER would sue.