January/February 2019

PE Report
Some See Bill as Common Sense; Ohio Society Sees Red Flag

The Ohio Society of Professional Engineers is challenging a bill that aims to shake up occupational licensing in the state and could place the public at risk.

The bill, S.B. 255, would allow Ohio to use the least restrictive regulations under the presumption that market competition will protect consumers and establish procedures for a sunset review of all occupational licensing boards. The legislation seeks to require all occupational licensing boards to be renewed at least once every six years by the General Assembly. The boards will be reviewed and renewed by December 31, 2024, unless the board was created within six years of that date.

Ohio Society President-Elect Devon Seal, P.E., F.NSPE, testified during a House Federalism and Interstate Relations Committee hearing in November to express the society’s concerns.

During her testimony, Seal said the bill is “a threat to any license that protects the public’s health, safety, or welfare—when the public can only truly be protected by professionals who have earned a very technical degree and the proper experience, and who are bound to a professional code of ethics.”

OSPE wants legislators to amend the bill so licensing boards that regulate licensees who have a direct link to public safety will be exempt from the review process. “In the case of engineering, every major public and private public works project has an engineering component embedded in it,” Seal stated. “Because Senate Bill 255 makes it possible to eliminate an engineering license or regulatory board, Ohio could be at risk for losing billions of dollars for these projects and endangering the public in one pen stroke.”

If the legislation is passed, OSPE is prepared to demonstrate the need for PE licensure and will seek opportunities to improve licensure law in future General Assemblies.

NSPE believes that the introduction of these bills underscores the profession’s need for vigilance against attacks on licensure. In a letter backing OSPE, then NSPE President Tom Roberts, P.E., F.NSPE, pointed out that a policy that presumes that the market will automatically protect the public is a “radical departure from the system that was designed specifically to protect Ohio’s citizens.”

Since 2016, legislation and regulations that could undermine or even eliminate licensure have been introduced in 32 states, and the attacks continue to intensify.