Website current as of August 4, 2008
Walter Okitsu, CLCPE Executive Board member, to speak
August 26, 2008, Los Angeles County (Note new date)
Topic: CLCPE and the Status of the PE License
Details and to RSVP
No cost to members of CPCLE member organizations to attend.
California Dept of Consumer Affairs: THE ENGINEERING TITLE ACT STUDY
California Legislative Council
of Professional Engineers
Member organizations include American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), California Industrial Engineers, California Manufacturing Engineers, California Nuclear Engineers, California Society of Professional Engineers (CSPE), Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE), ISA - The Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society (ISA), Mechanical Engineers Association of California (MEAC), Registered Traffic Engineers of America, and Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE).
For information about the CLCPE,
please contact the President, download the official organization brochure (
Low Resolution, 425K or
High Resolution, 8.4MB
)
or click on the thumbnails below to read online.
Robert A. Katin, P.E., President
California Legislative Council of Professional Engineers
(925) 755-1150 Telephone
(925) 754-8524 Fax
rakatin@pacbell.net
Thanks to action taken by CLCPE in JUL-SEP 2000, we were able to modify State Senate Bill 2030 (SB 2030) to require the Engineering Board (BPELS) to retain an independent consultant to evaluate the State Engineers' Act. SB 2030 became law in JAN 2001, and Cal State Sacramento Institute of Social Research (ISR) was retained in JUN 2001. After spending over $400,000, ISR completed their Study and submitted it to the Engineering Board's boss (DCA) in SEP 2002. As a result of the Study conducted by ISR, the Engineering Board (BPELS) drafted legislation and sponsored SB 191 in JUN 2005. This bill was going to fix the broken State Engineers' Act, correcting deficiencies noted in the ISR Study. Virtually everyone supported the bill, from Fortune 500 companies, engineering firms, regulatory agencies, associations, over 100 Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) members, and seven Deans of Schools of Engineering from prominent California universities. See
list of supporters
. Even though the majority of PECG members that were contacted had never heard of SB 191, PECG leadership directed their lobbyist to lobby against the bill. So a bill written by the Engineering Board to correct the State Engineers' Act was unfortunately defeated by PECG.
THE ENGINEERING TITLE ACT STUDY:
The Practice/Title Act Distinction and
Protection of Public Health, Safety and Welfare
November 2002
Download report
Recommendation #1a: Remove all prohibitions against overlapping practice between engineering disciplines from the Professional Engineers Act and Board Rules.
Recommendation #1b: Give all regulated disciplines the right to responsible charge of engineering projects when justified by their education and experience. Supportive
Recommendation #2: Eliminate title protection and offer practice protection to all regulated disciplines.
Recommendation #3a: The Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors should track engineering degrees, examinations taken (including the depth module where appropriate) and job experience at time of application for licensing as a means of identifying areas of expertise and assessing policies associated with exam administration. Limited information on licensees should be available to the public.
Recommendation #3b: If the justification for licensing is protection of public health, safety and welfare, and if the state recognizes engineering as a field with the potential for significant social harm, then the state should accept the responsibility of maintaining useful records on applicants for licensure and complaints against licensees so that evaluative questions can be asked of the data.
Recommendation #4: The legislature should mandate the reporting of legal actions, including out-of-court settlements, against engineers, licensed or unlicensed, and against corporations engaged in engineering activities, to the Board.
Recommendation #5a: Develop better information on the public health, safety and welfare impacts of engineering branches before making regulatory distinctions between them. Only when legal actions are reported and more comprehensive complaint data and insurance premium and claims data are available can the state determine whether there is any justification for deregulating currently regulated disciplines. Current information relevant to the Sunrise criteria supports extending practice protection to all currently regulated disciplines. If stronger data becomes available, the need for continuing regulation can be evaluated at that time.
Recommendation #5b: Accept as new regulated disciplines those with an NCEES or California-developed examination if their assessment under the Sunrise Criteria is comparable to existing regulated disciplines.
Recommendation #6a: California's legislature, Board and engineering organizations should work closely with NCEES to standardize the goals, methodologies and analytical techniques used in its job analyses across all engineering disciplines.
Recommendation #6b: Both California and NCEES should maintain nonproprietary data files describing the job analyses to assist educators and licensing boards in understanding and tracking changes in the field.
Download the complete 290-page study, PDF (engineer.zip, 3.5MB)
Member Organizations
American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
AIChE Southern California Section
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE)
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
California Industrial Engineers
California Manufacturing Engineers
California Nuclear Engineers
California Society of Professional Engineers (CSPE)
Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
ISA - The Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society
ISA Orange County Section
ISA Southern San Joaquin Valley Section
Mechanical Engineers Association of California (MEAC)
Registered Traffic Engineers of America
Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE)
SFPE San Diego Chapter
SFPE Northern California/Nevada Chapter
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