Believe it or not, there's a fair amount of work taking place behind the scenes at FAA HQ since the summer.
A couple things to look out for:
1) In order to prevent the rule to go out as a NPRM rather than a final rule, the FAA rule has to be EXACTLY as written by the legislation without any interpretation. Problem is the legislation wasn't written by folks familiar with FAA rule making, so there are some inadvertent and mostly insignificant flaws that will get carried over to the regulations. If you read the law closely, you'll note a few odd things:
--relief is only good for those acting as PIC, so a safety pilot who is not acting as PIC (but is a required crew member when the PIC is wearing a view limiting device) must hold a medical (or be agree and be able to act as PIC).
--Inconsistent use of months and calendar months (24 calendar months for medical education course, 48 months for medical exam)
--Inability to use relief when flying a light sport aircraft when using exercising higher-than-sport-pilot privileges (i.e. at night, under IFR) because the law specifies a maximum certificated takeoff weight, which does not exist for LSAs (LSAs are authorized under a Special Light Sport Aircraft certification category that adhere to an ASTM standard, but do not have certificate maximum weight like a part 23 certificated aircraft).
There are a few other things too, which escape me at the moment. At some point after the rule is published I expect another rule go out to clean up this minor issues. Either way, I don't think it is necessary for the FAA to fix it now if it means going out for public comment (and triggering an additional internal DOT review process).
2) The FAA's goal is to get this published in January. Because there's a pretty major change in the executive branch there will likely be a halt to new regulations until the incoming administration can review it. I'm not certain that the legislative directive will make a difference in this case, but it is a potential delay.