The Industrial Exemption: Which States Have Them and Which States Do Not?
This is the second in what will be a series of articles regarding industrial exemptions to engineering licensure requirements in state engineering statutes. The NSPE Licensure and Qualifications for Practice Committee has a charge this year to examine industrial exemptions. The current status of industrial exemptions in each jurisdiction is described below.
A few years ago, Neil A. Norman, P.E., currently a member of the Washington Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, prepared an outstanding summary of the genesis of industrial exemptions in the U.S. This treatise makes for interesting reading.
NSPE’s General Counsel Arthur Schwartz prepared a listing of the verbatim language in each state’s engineering statute regarding exemptions for either utilities (electrical and/or telecommunications) or manufacturers.
The table below provides a summary of the status of industrial exemptions in the U.S. as of 2010. This summary is taken from a table prepared from the listing above. The characterizations of each state aren’t definitive, and a few of the statutes aren’t entirely clear as to whether the industrial exemption applies to manufacturing, utilities, or both. The state-by-state summary, and the overall summary below, provide a general sense of where things stand today. For definitive information on each state, read the statute, and contact the state PE board for clarification.
Status of Industrial Exemptions in U.S. Jurisdictions, 2010
|
| Number of Jurisdictions
| Total Population
(in millions, 2009)
|
| No Industrial Exemption
|
9
|
30
|
| Industrial Exemptions for Utilities Only
|
6
|
56
|
| Subtotal, Jurisdictions with No Industrial Exemption for Manufacturing
|
14
|
74
|
| Jurisdictions with Industrial Exemptions for BOTH Manufacturers and Utilities
|
25
|
137
|
| Jurisdictions with Industrial Exemptions Only for Manufacturers, not Utilities
|
11
|
86
|
| Subtotal, Jurisdictions with Industrial Exemptions for Manufacturers
|
36
|
223
|
| Jurisdictions Unclear (Michigan) |
1
|
10
|
|
Total
|
51
|
307
|
The eight jurisdictions that currently appear not to have any industrial exemptions are Arkansas, Hawaii, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Those jurisdictions that have industrial exemptions for utilities, either electrical or telecommunications, or both, but do NOT appear to have industrial exemptions for manufacturers are Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Nevada, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
The majority of jurisdictions (36 of 51), having a combined 2009 population of 223 million people or 2/3 of the U.S. population, have engineering statutes that exempt employees of manufacturing firms.
So, that’s what we have now.
Editorial input for this article was provided by J. Steven Almon, P.E., L. Robert Smith, P.E. and Bernard R. Berson, P.E.
