January/February 2020

NSPE Today: Policy Perspectives
Members Rise to Advocacy Challenges as 2020 Agenda Takes Shape

BY STEPHANIE HAMILTON

Looking back, 2019 was a busy advocacy year. There was a lot going on at both the state and federal levels. NSPE’s Government Relations team reached out to you several times this year, inviting you to contact lawmakers about a variety of issues—licensing exemptions, licensing access, computer tracking software, and even changes to the IRS tax code. We asked, and boy did you respond! Here’s a by-the-numbers breakdown.

NSPE launched 14 advocacy campaigns in 2019, and 698 NSPE members responded. You logged a total of 1,529 actions, contacting 317 state and federal lawmakers. That’s an increase of more than 500% over 2018 activity! Five hundred percent! In addition, we held our first-ever PE Day Lobby campaign, in which we invited you to meet with congressional staffers in district offices during the August recess. Seventy-one of you participated in that effort, meeting with staffers from 78 offices in 28 states.

If you’re not patting yourself on the back right now, you should! We asked you to step up and you did! Your participation was key in delivering NSPE’s concerns and priorities to the very people who affect them. Those connections were key in helping us build good working relationships with, for example, members of the Senate Commerce Committee (who are working on autonomous vehicle legislation) and members of the House Environment and Public Works Committee (who continue to work on pipeline safety and licensing exemption issues). Because of your activity, NSPE’s profile, issues, and positions were elevated and taken seriously by elected officials. Which puts us in a much stronger position going into 2020.

Speaking of the new year, what issues are at the top of the 2020 legislative agenda?

Licensing exemptions remain a priority, and we expect continued activity at both the federal and state levels. The governors of 31 states have until January 24 to respond to letters from the National Transportation Safety Board regarding PE license exemptions on natural gas infrastructure projects. It’s a first-of-its-kind opportunity for NSPE to address licensing exemptions across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously, and it’s our first advocacy campaign of 2020 (technically launched in 2019, but with a renewed focus at the start of the year).

Access to professional licensing also continues to get a lot of attention from lawmakers and special interest groups. Efforts to make it easier for people with criminal histories to become licensed will carry over into the new year. This is a tricky issue. Under Position Statement 09-200, NSPE doesn’t support automatic denial of licensure to people with criminal histories, but also supports continued autonomy for licensing boards, believing they need the freedom to make those decisions on a case-by-case basis. As such, NSPE generally opposes any bill that prohibits a licensing board from considering a person’s criminal history or limits the types of crimes that can be considered, but also opposes regulations that outright deny licensure to a person with a criminal history, regardless of the type of crime or how long ago it occurred.

Resilience is another issue that NSPE will focus on in 2020. As sea levels rise, storms become stronger, and wildfires become more prevalent, professional engineers have opportunities and responsibilities to design and build systems and environments that can better withstand those forces. NSPE will be watching for state and federal legislation or proposed regulatory changes that address resilience problems and will work to ensure that professional engineers are acknowledged as being an integral part of the solution.

As technology continues to advance and evolve, the public health, safety, and welfare needs to be a priority. NSPE will engage in this issue again in 2020, as state and federal lawmakers work to determine the best policies for supporting emerging technologies while also protecting the public. As with resilience, there is a vital role for the professional engineer to play here, and NSPE will continue to advocate for that role in everything from autonomous vehicles to smart cities.

The above topics are the areas in which we expect to see the most relevant activity, but NSPE is taking action on many other issues—infrastructure, QBS, and ethics to name a few. As opportunities arise for NSPE members to be involved, we’ll reach out and ask you to meet, call, or email your elected officials. And just as you stepped up in 2019, I have no doubt that you’ll step up in 2020.

Thank you, to all of you who believe enough in the valuable role of the professional engineer to speak up and advocate on behalf of the profession. Here’s to an even more successful new year!