The article says 80% of engineers are working without a license. From experience, this is especially true for electrical engineering. Someone designing a building's electrical system would have a PE to sign off on plans (or be working under someone with a PE). But someone doing embedded design would not, because there is a completely different approval process for consumer/industrial products - we test rather than simply asserting products are safe because they were designed by a PE.
Without a PE, I am still an engineer. I can say I am an engineer, because "engineer" is not a protected title anywhere in the US. I can speak authoritatively on engineering topics, because I have vast technical knowledge. My opinions on topics I know little about (eg civil engineering) will be tempered with "I think", because knowing one area really well, I am aware of how much I do not know in other areas. Whether anyone chooses to listen to anything I say is their own choice.
What I cannot do is sign off on plans for permits, solicit business that would generally require signing off on plans for permits, or anything else that specifically requires a PE license. Those requirements are in legal force due to the product delivered (eg a bridge requisitioned by the state, a house which needs a building permit) and are not generally applicable for all engineering activity.
There also is the related issue that everybody has the right to technically criticize a situation if they have done the work to make their case. Only a licensed Professional Engineer has the ability to say a bridge is safe, but we all have the right to claim that it is unsafe.
The letter that person received from the board is linked in the article.
It states the person is charged and gives them the opportunity for a written response.
Civil engineering typically requires a PE.
It's more accurate to say that the kind of projects civil engineers work on generally end up requiring a PE, as a condition of actually being built. Small time civil engineering in your own backyard does not require a PE - eg improving drainage, setting up a windmill, building a chicken coop, etc.
Prohibiting people from applying mathematical formulas in court arguments because doing so is "engineering" is a dangerous idea. If you're fighting a speeding ticket, is it "engineering" to independently calculate your speed by measuring the time between two points?
Ultimately if the stormwater calculations are complex enough that the court is unable to follow them itself, then it is up to the court to disregard his testimony because he is not a professional engineer with a trustable opinion. That would be a perfectly reasonable outcome here.
But what the state board is attempting to do is to prohibit anybody from examining technicalities without the right license. That's the path to closed society madness.
https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NC_Engineering_ema...
Nutt's position is that their claim conflicts with his first amendment right to free speech, specifically his right to state his opinion on technical matters.
I agree with Nutt. NC is effectively attempting to criminalize my ability to represent myself in court and many other areas of society (enumerated in a sibling comment) - due to having the "regulated knowledge" of engineering without the corresponding license, I would be unable to state my opinion. Instead I would have to hire a PE that concurs with me simply to express my own opinion.
And if you attempt to provide expert testimony in your own defense, the court will likely laugh at you. You will have to hire an outside expert to provide expert testimony.
Suppressing testimony by punishing people for speaking honestly (nor merely disregarding their testimony) undermines the very foundation of thr legal system.
This is obviously wrong. Lying is broadly protected by free speech but firmly illegal, not just inadmissible, in court testimony. Courts also have the ability to compel testimony under criminal penalty, while free speech includes the right to say nothing or dissemble. Evidentiary standards place further requirements even on the source of what you are saying, regardless of its truth.
Or as the 6th Circuit put it, "The courtroom is a nonpublic forum, where the First Amendment rights of everyone (attorneys included) are at their constitutional nadir."
Even if he's 100% correct, that doesn't mean he has a first amendment right to testify!
"The yellow light timing is below table X of the traffic code, and therefore my ticket for running the red light is invalid because I was not given the chance to stop in time."
That's an argument that an individual can straightforwardly make and a judge can choose to accept or not by following the same reasoning. It involves engineering analysis, yet it is low stakes enough to make hiring a Professional Engineer prohibitive.
Under the North Carolina board's position, a person who makes this argument is committing a crime. That effectively creates a privileged class of people whose decisions (or oversights) cannot be questioned even when they're blatantly wrong - in this example, the traffic engineers responsible for the intersection.
The board is investigating a case based on its authority. The authority exists via democratic process originating with the legislative process and state constitution.
The regulation of engineering is within the scope of the states per the US Constitution and established legal precedent.
1. Using mathematical formulas to demonstrate facts, such as pointing out that speed can be calculated by distance over time.
2. Pointing out how a red light camera fails to meet required implementation details.
3. Pointing out how a bridge is unsafe.
4. Pointing out that an expert witness is glaringly wrong.
5. Comment on the details of a public proposal.
Nutt's case is analogous to 3. Nutt did not design the stormwater system. He is critiquing it for a poor design. In an open society, that is everyone's right. The court can choose to find his reasoning lacking or simply non-understandable, but he shouldn't then be getting attacked for having spoken his opinion.
Errors and disagreements are common in engineering, as in any art, and so any honest engineer should be worried about criminalizing debate. Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
Licensure boards can be notoriously aggressive, which is why this case is getting attention. Furthermore, state-chartered entities are commonly over scoped because they're really just extensions of the state executive, with only court cases to push back on them. Your argument from status quo is uncompelling.
He has not practiced engineering in any way whatsoever.
2. There is some precedent implying a free speech concern: https://reason.com/2019/01/02/judge-confirms-that-oregon-eng...
The preponderance of precedent favors the board’s concerns and right to investigate.
Being slightly familiar with North Carolina professional regulations, I suspect this holds true at the state level in particular.
The legal argument is inconsistent. It claims that the regulations don’t apply because the regulations apply via the industrial exemption in the regulations…never mind the retired.
You seem to have missed the legal argument in the Oregon case which had nothing to do with an industrial exemption.
Nutt became required to get a license when he began practicing engineering outside the "industrial exception".
They are doing something that is only to their own benefit in a context where other people’s lives are at stake.
Quite simply it is unprofessional. A person without a license can hire a licensed professional for oversight. That’s the responsible thing to do.
In the US, engineering licensure requires supervised experience, testing, and typically (but not always) formal education at the bachelor level.
One requirement of professional practice is not working beyond one’s competence irrespective of having a license and engineering boards take that seriously.
I guess that’s the thing, an unlicensed person doing unsupervised work requiring a license is some combination of incompetent, unqualified, or negligent.
To put it another way, licensure ensures that a person has a minimum amount of skill, training, and experience. And that they take responsibility.
Yes you can hire an engineer to supervise your work.
Then you have successfully avoided responsibility for it.
And legally as well.
A license would allow you to take responsibility for what you do.
I can understand why someone wouldn't want it.
I don't understand why someone who has chosen that route whines about it.
Engineers are trained to have expert opinions.
They are expected to consider all relevant factors.
In AEC the relevant factors include compliance with relevant laws and rules such as the building codes and all the documents incorporated by reference.
It is a matter of life safety and the regulation of construction is at least as old as the Code of Hammurabi…it predates the first amendment by three millennia.
In that context an unlicensed person holding themselves out as an expert in engineering has disregarded a basic responsibility, they have ignored a relevant legal requirement: their license.
This raises a legitimate concern. What other corners might they have cut for their own benefit?
Because ignoring licensure is to no one’s benefit but the person doing so. It is a violation of the trust people expect when engaging with engineers. The trust that the engineer will be objective in relevant matters.
Licensing engineers is why you don’t worry when you drive across a bridge…or under one. Or go up a tall building or stand next to it. It’s why collapsed bridges are news.