good morning and may it please the court's job to do so on behalf of the petitioner and with your permission i'd like to reserve five minutes for a bottle the federal labor relations authority failed to give effect to the office of personnel management for reasonable interpretation of its own regulations as a result the department of homeland security has been ordered to pay a premium of overtime pay for overtime hours that are never being worked we respectfully request that this court grants the petition but i rather than granting our coding the time as official time right yes that's the proposal that it be administratively and indeed discussion of why that's done which is in the record of the post petition conference it says and it's a kind of long but i think it's all important this method according to the union is intended to operate by requiring the agency to grant administrative leave coded for administrative purposes the time spent union explained that and certified employee would lose time so it seems like it was not only the proposal but central to the proposal that this be administrative leave is that part fair i think that is a fair characterization are yes so if that's fair and we now have a new statute which specifically says during any calendar year an agency may place an employee administrative leave for a period of not more than ten work days and also says that any agency show record in history of leave separately from leave authorized under any other provision that would seem to put this proposal at risk port completely different set of reasons namely a statue that is inconsistent and i don't know whether that's the right answer or not but i don't understand how we can go forward because none of this  happened yet with something that might completely moot anything we do today your honor i don't think the issue would be moot at least with respect to the first ten days of administrative i do you know i got that but i also read here that we're not talking to in the distinction between hours and weeks that we're not talking about a few days here we're talking about weeks of time i think that's right or oh maybe they'll come back and say we'll be satisfied with ten days and that's all we're asking for but that's not what they're asking for here i'm not jumping to the merits i don't actually know i actually reading the stented says o p m is supposed to come out with regulations have they done that yet no your honor my understanding is that they have not well or slow because they're supposed to do that not later than two hundred seventy calendar days i think that's right or so i don't know maybe there will be a different proposal which will be completely consistent with the statute and may be completely consistent with the o p m regulations in which case indeed your honor and i don't want to resist to have it if the court concludes that this nusach train accident is a good reason to remain and i think that could be a permissible outcome but i do think that the authority has made clear they don't think that any of the big think that's part of any official time however characterized could be excluded from a retrospective review period and so i do think that that your question of  which covers representation i don't know what that means no one's interpret it yet and i'd hate to be the first one interpreter without a view from the agency on the subject which you have not offered to us guidance your honor i would again i guess we don't know what the authority would say about the effect of the new statute which they haven't argued here before you that changes anything and so i suspect we know what their answer would be and i clear that it did not as an institution ask for really and for reconsideration and they also knew that that was not withstanding the twenty sixteen act which they don't think changes their conclusion and so we don't this is a sentence without any explanation and it doesn't even say they voted against it just as they haven't voted to seek really don't know what that means right so i mean it's a lot of reading between the lines we're right on aren't even there so i do think if this court thought the twenty sixteen act changed the case such that it really and would be appropriate i'm not here to tell you that that would be inappropriate but i do think you have the judicial power to what these regulations we discretion for in terms of our inability of it you said you know because again i think the authority has its own view of what opium trade relations mean and they haven't been giving  stannis of the council table whose union council to address the questions your honor is raised regarding the administrative leave act i can one factual matters opium has issued in term regulations on the administrative leave act to do so in july but it has not component of the original proposal because that would be the means by which the parties but exclude official time that said under the authority one nine hundred eighty six national border patrol council case official time regardless of how it coded could be excluded from a u f o as i say that and in my opinion in the for in the authorities you heard opinion i mean i think it it refers certainly it is relies on the national border patrol council came on but doesn't say that that work we're going to accept  different proposal than the one here and that alternative holds as the one we find it goes from what it does say it doesn't go that specifically your honor obviously it was considering the proposal in its entirety the the the authority does say though is one of its grounds for distinguishing the guidance that official time that because of the present proposal doesn't cover further guidance doesn't cover the subject of the proposal which is the exclusion of fishel time gen i understand that but  mechanism for excluding it was supposed to be by coding it as administrator we are correct in that they don't say we don't need that or that's not part of the issue right i mean maybe maybe this is the answer that they'll come back with  obviously authority would prefer the court to remand it than to decide it on its own and that is certainly if the court believes that the administrative leave act is critical to resolving this case and isn't something that can be negotiated on the back end would say is obviously if the court is that believes that the it's not right for decision because of the administrative leave act it's best to send it back to the authority to decide in the first instance i mean we agree with that basic principle rather than decide it and apply the administrative leave ac we appreciate your honor i do think on the merits of the case if the court were to reach as the authorities opinion is very straightforward in that we have a one nine hundred eighty six opinion that does address this issue and there is no subsequent o p m guidance or regulation that even touch of it but the authority was reasonable given the case that was presented to it in two thousand and fifteen or two thousand and fifteen and sixteen to conclude that there was no current prohibition or conflict with the existing regulation or law i'll just ask you the same question i think you and diplomatically ask the other side you don't have anything more to say than that you said in your briefs with respect to the merits nothing except that i think the timeline of the various documents  often when there is a general problem we send it back if we think the agency might have another explanation under our ally signal rule we don't vacate only we usually only vacate if we think there's no way they can reach the same result neither side seems to know whether there's a way here so i'm not sure the great the tourist really can compel i understand you're right i believe that opium zvi would be that they couldn't reach