Talk:Regulation and licensure in engineering

I moved this from [Professional engineer]. This is a specific title. It should be capitalized. --Jia ng 14:14, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This statement was added:

In Canada some engineering activities are also permitted to Professional Physicists with the P.Phys designation.

I do not believe that is correct. The P. Phys designation is simply a trademarked term. This grants no right to practice at all. They definitely do not have any right to do "engineering". (The Engineers Acts generally do not allow the professional associations to delegate the registration of who can do engineering and therefore it would not be legal for PEO to say those who are registered P.Phys can do engineering in some specific field.) -- Webgeer 01:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Licensed Professional Engineer"

The term "Licensed Professional Engineer is redundant. I know of no North American jurisdiction that permits an individual to call themselves a Professional Engineer without a license. Anyone who wants to make a distiction between PE and Licensed PE should supply an example to the contrary. Toiyabe 16:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The term licensed professional engineer is not redundant. -- Paleorthid 18:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Information at the Purdue University College of Engineering site supports use of the term licensed professional engineer. However note the lack of title case, a distinction that appears important to some -- Paleorthid 18:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heimer Engineering is fond of the phrase, and uses title case. They also describe themselves as purveyors of "Insight and understanding that only a Licensed Engineer can provide" -- Paleorthid 18:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The National Society of Professional Engineers uses the phrase (see second and seventh paragraphs) -- Paleorthid 18:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The California Board for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors uses the phrase "enforcing the laws regulating licensed professional engineers" in the metatag description embedded in their home page. -- Paleorthid 18:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Steps to becoming a Licensed Professional Engineer -- Paleorthid 18:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New York State Education Dept's Office of the Professions answers the question "What is a licensed professional engineer?" on their Professional Engineering Consumers Brochure page. -- Paleorthid 18:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New York State Statutes, Article 145, Paragraph 7202 "Only a person licensed or otherwise authorized under this article shall practice engineering or use the title "professional engineer". [1].

Check any state law book and you'll find the same language.

Yes, the term "licensed professional engineer" is commonly used, but it is redundant. What I was objecting to is useing that phrase to split PEs into a liscensed category and an unliscensed category. Use of the term PE is unlawfull in any state unless one has a license. Industrial exemptions work for the title "engineer" but not "professional engineer" - the only exemption I could think of is employment by the Fed or State government in which "professional engineer" appears in the job title. Toiyabe 18:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If redundant, it can't be grossly redundant when so many authoritative sources use it. Using the term early in the article improves the readability. It is a distinction that the sources I have cited have generally employed to improve readability. This encyclopedic article benefits from similar use of the phrase. The absence of the phrase is a source of confusion to the reader, as indicated by recent editing history. -- Paleorthid 19:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care if you use the redundant term as long as you don't use it to claim that you can be a PE without a license. Toiyabe 19:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Texas Board of Professional Engineers states "This database listing contains current Active and Inactive Licensed Professional Engineers only". -- Paleorthid 18:51, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Texas Occupational Code Paragraph 1001.301 - Must have a license to use the terms "engineer", "professional engineer" and just about every other permutation. [2]

Are you going to make me go through the law books for every state? Toiyabe 19:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unnecessary. This is an encyclopedic article, not a body of law, which has limited jurisdition and specific application. This is a critical distinction. -- Paleorthid 19:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what your point is then. "Professional Engineer" is a legally defined term in the US and Canada. This article is about the usage of that term in the US and Canada. Now, if you want to argue that common definition of the term is different than the legal definition of the term, you will have to show some basis. I think you would need to show significant numbers of people using the title "Professional Engineer" without a license. Because that is illegal, I doubt you'll be able to do it. Toiyabe 19:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Degreed Engineer, Professional degree

I must agree somewhat with marg4. Consider the following:

According to the Federal Gov't (OPM), GS-800 "Professional Engineering Positions" require the following BASIC QUALIFICATION

1. Successful completion a full four-year professional engineering curriculum leading to a bachelor's or higher degree in engineering from an accredited college or university that has an engineering curriculum accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

Clearly the federal Gov't recognizes "professional engineering curriculum" as a bachelor's or higher degree in engineering. A person hired into a GS-8xx position would be working as a "professional Engineer".

Seperately, OPM also recognizes "Registered Professional Engineers" as being eligible for "Professional Engineering positions".

It seems Marg4 is taking the point of view that the Fed. Gov't is taking with regard to "Professional Engineers". Are they both wrong or both right ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.72.98.89 (talk • contribs) 16:54, 11 May 2006.

The Federal Government is not subject to state law. The federal government can and does call its employees anything it wants. For example, it could call any of it's employees "Medical Doctors", and none of the state medical boards could take action. Certain states also have exemptions for their own employees with regards to the use of the term "engineer". Everyone else is subject to state law, and must be careful when using the title "Engineer" and especially "Professional Engineer". I added a paragraph covering this before, but someone removed it, and I didn't bother to put it back in.

The Federal/State differnce on engineers is sort of covered in the article. The interstate commerce clause is where the "industrial exemptions" come from, as the states can't regulate the practice of engineering involved in interstate commerce, and the Feds don't care. Toiyabe 14:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Revert to restore govt eng text

"...such as Operating Engineer. Employees of state or federal agencies may also call themselves engineers if that term appears in their official job title." was initiated by Toiyabe on February 14 2006, but was removed by 67.72.98.91 on April 15 006, an IP associated with multiple vandalisms (see user talk). Removed text was then was restored by Civil Engineer III on April 17 006 but then was removed by Ieee-pe on April 22 006, a user with only this one event. No edit summary was offered. --Paleorthid 18:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Toiyabe says: "The federal government can and does call its employees anything it wants." The fact remains, unless challenged in court, whatever the Federal Gov't does, is legal!

Do the right thing and change the main page back as follows: A Professional Engineer is: (a) A person who is a registered or licensed engineer or, (b) A person holding a professional degree, majoring in Engineering. See professional degree. Note, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who do most of the design work in areas of "PE" work such as levees, bridges, dams, power generation, etc. are Federal Gov.'t Engineers. And NO they do not require PE licenses to be working as "Engineers" with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. You (Toiyabe) should accept this. As stated before, this is an injustice to all of us who have advanced degrees in Engineering. (MSEE, PhD EE). We have "professional degrees in Engineering" and are thus "professional engineers". A lawyer fresh out of Law school is still a lawyer, unlicensed until he passed the bar, but a lawyer, nonetheless. Same goes for a doctor, same for an engineer. These are all considered "professional occupations". Marg4

Yes, these are all "professional occupations" and they are subject to licensure. For a lawyer, the professional degree is Juris Doctor (JD). To be a Lawyer, one needs a license, for which JD is a prerequisite, see Lawyer#Mandatory licensing and membership in professional organizations. Likewise, Doctor of Medicine (MD) is a professional degree, to be a Physician (in the US at least) one requires a license for which the MD is one of the prerequisites. There is no professional degree called "PE". There are various Batchelors, Masters and PhD degrees in engineering. Those are "professional degrees". "PE" is a license, available from variously named state boards in the US and professional associations in Canada.

With the exception of employment with the Federal Government, you have yet to provide an instance where PE is treated as anything other than an occupational license. I don't know the specifics of pracicing law and medicine within the Armed Forces, but I rather suspect you don't need a state license to practice in those instances either. Despite that, FHWA requires that the design projects it does be signed off on by a PE with a license in the state the project is to be built in. I haven't done work for the Army Corps of Engineers, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't also the case. Anyway, it is laughable to say that the Army Corps does most of the Professional Engineering work. They do a very small minority of such work, limited to navigable waterways, and not even the majority of design work there. They do have some regulatory authority over all such work on navigable waterways, and good luck trying to get some plans past them on the basis of your "professional degree" intead of a PE license.

Anyway, if you want the page changed to reflect your viewpoint, you should back them up with some reliable references rather than assertions. I presume you have an advanced degree in EE but no license. Do you have Professional Engineer or PE written on your buisness card? If not, why not? If so, are you willing to send me a copy so I can forward it to the Board of Engineering in your home state? They'll probably let you off with a warning if it's your first violation. Toiyabe 15:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will speak from the Canadian perspective as this article does cover both. In Canada, the term "Professional Engineer" and "engineer" is a protected title by the provincial act. Only those who are registered with the provincial association of engineers (name various from province to province) are allowed to call themselves "engineers". If you are a graduate of an engineering program you are of course permitted to state that you have a degree in engineering, but you cannot call yourself an engineer. I also would like to add that I have never seen the term "Degreed Engineer" used by anyone and I doubt it would be legal for a non-professional engineer to use that title in Canada (as it implies that the title holder is an engineer, when in fact they are not allowed to call themselves an engineer). Therefore I will remove it from the first paragraph and put it in a separate paragraph. (For the act and bylaws in BC see APEGBC site)-- Webgeer 16:41, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm astonished by the lack of common sense. Webgeer states "Only those who are registered with the provincial association of engineers (name various from province to province) are allowed to call themselves 'engineers'." The ridiculousness of this statement should be enough to back the facts. To say that a college graduate of Engineering does not have the legal right to call himself an "engineer" in the most ridiculous, absurd statement. The fact remains, An "engineer" is anyone holding a degree in engineering from an accredited four-year university. Such a person is an "engineer" and can call himself an “engineer”, and may work for public or private business as an engineer. Depending upon the type or area of work, a license may or may not be necessary. If a license is necessary, an engineer would follow the course to take the "P.E. exam" to be so licensed. Remember a P.E. license is just a license. It means a person passed a P.E. Exam. A person need not have ever taken a single college course to be eligible to take a P.E. exam. By the way, Toiyabe, I would have no problem telling my State Board I use the title "engineer" without having a P.E. license. There is not a thing they would do or could do. It just doesn't matter! And people out there need to know that. Marg4

OK. I think we've established that "Professional Engineer" is an occupational license, and only those with the license can use that title. Clearly if you use that title without a license, you won't want the state board to find out.

As the article states, enforcement of restrictions on the title "Engineer" is lax, but that doesn't mean that most North American jurisdictions don't have such restrictions. Webgeer has provided a link to the BC law regarding that. I've provided links to NY and TX law on that. You may think those laws are absurd, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Toiyabe 14:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously enforcement varies by context. In a casual context there is obviously no problem with calling yourself an engineer. However, if you are not a registered engineer in BC and took out an advertisement in the yellow pages under engineering, or if you wrote a letter to the newspaper and said "I am an engineer and...", you quite likely would face enforcement. I know for a fact that the BC association quite routinely sends out letters to non-PEng's who use the title "engineer" on their business card asking them to remove it (and they pretty much always get compliance). A very specific on-going example example is that in Canada any MCSE are risking enforcement measures if they spell out their designation on their business card in Canada (see ccpe site for more information). -- Webgeer 23:23, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]