July/August 2018

PE Report
Michigan Society Opposes Bill Treading on PE Judgment

It was only last year that the Michigan Society of Professional Engineers, with backing from NSPE, worked to stop the progress of a bill in the state Senate that would have infringed on the PE’s judgment in recommending pipe and piping materials on certain public projects. Now, MSPE is speaking out against a similar bill in the House.

The legislation (H.B. 5723), which applies to publicly financed water supply and wastewater projects, may sound reasonable to some. It would prohibit a public entity from adopting or enforcing an ordinance that prohibits, restricts, or limits the evaluation, comparison, or usage of certain pipe and piping materials, specifically those that meet the standards of the American Society for Testing and Materials, the American Water Works Association, the Great Lakes-Upper Mississippi River Board, the American National Standards Institute, and NSF International. The prohibition would also apply to the performance specifications determined by a professional engineer.

The legislation also states that the provision would not limit the professional judgment of a project’s engineer to specify or select any acceptable pipe or piping materials based on the project’s performance requirements.

While the bill’s language is different from the language originally proposed in last year’s Senate version, MSPE believes that it still attempts to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. MSPE leaders reached out to the Michigan Competitiveness Committee to explain that operators of the state’s public water and wastewater systems design these systems for sustained, long-term operation and with the public health, safety, and welfare as primary design factors.

“It’s imperative that the industry allow the design engineers and system operators, the experts in operations and maintenance, to choose the materials that can provide consistent and safe service,” wrote MSPE President-Elect Scott Conners, P.E., in a memo to the committee.

MSPE also asked the committee to consider that licensed professional engineers are already working to include new pipe materials as needed and that it is dangerous to tie pipe supply to a handful of specifications that might not give the end user the performance or maintenance options that they prefer.

In about the last two years, states including Indiana, Ohio, and South Carolina have introduced similar versions of this legislation. NSPE believes that the professional engineer’s foremost responsibility is to protect the public health, safety, and welfare. Professional engineers are already obligated to choose the right piping material, based on experience, expertise, qualifications, and the applied knowledge of engineering principles.