New York State Council of Professional Geologists

Newsletter

Volume 4, No. 3
May/June 1999

As the legislative session whimpers to a close, the time seemsappropriate to apprise NYSCPG members of the status of the proposed licensure bill and therecent activities of the organization to forward that legislation. During this session wemet with staff members of both the Assembly and Senate Higher Education Committees toestablish the procedures to be followed to pass our licensure bill. These meeting wereattended by our legislative and legal council as well as members of the NYSCPG legislativecommittee. Unlike earlier meetings with these legislative staff members, the discussionsfocused not so much on who and what geologists are but rather on the mechanics of passinga bill, proposed roundtable discussions involving all interested parties, and a timetable.The typical amount of time for passage of any professional licensure bill in the New YorkState legislature is five years and in some cases can take considerably longer. The effortsponsored by NYSCPG is about two or three years into the process so it is clear that wehave more work ahead of us but this is to be expected. We have moved the process forwardsignificantly and, with due diligence, we will see this through to completion.

A series of meetings with representatives of the New York State Society of Professional Engineers(NYSSPE) has reduced the differences between points of view of our organization and thatof the engineers to one final issue. That issue deals with the mechanics of the manner inwhich engineering firms now offering geological services and currently employinggeologists will deal with the situation when those employees become"professionals" under New York State Law. In cordial discussions, the NYSSPEproposed that engineering firms currently employing geologists for the purpose of offeringgeological services be allowed to continue to employ professional geologists and offergeological services without having a geologist as a principal (or partner, etc.) in thefirm. NYSCPG does not favor such an approach and in fact such an arrangement would be arather large and singular exception to State Education and other laws. NYSCPG recognizesthat there may be some fallout with respect to this issue. While we have no evidence tosuggest that it will happen, some engineering firms may choose not to place a geologist inthe position of a principal of the firm and will perhaps cease to offer geologicalservices or will seek those services from an independent geological consulting firm. Ofcourse, there are other courses of action, e.g. parallel corporations for engineering andgeological services, which may be taken by engineering firms. We are continuing to discussthis matter with the NYSSPE.

NYSCPG is in contact with the NYS Professional Employees Federation,the public worker’s union, regarding the effect of the proposed geologists’licensure bill on public employees. PEF has informally posed questions about implicationsthat the licensure bill might have on Civil Service regulations.

The Consulting Engineering Council of New York State (CEC/NYS) has,within the past month, presented NYSCPG with comments on the licensure bill. These arestartlingly different from their comments of last year, when CEC suggestions for languagemodification roughly paralleled those of the NYSSPE. CEC now requests further extensivemodifications which, at first reading, infinitely expand the rights of engineers topractice professional geology. Face-to-face discussions will be held in the near future todetermine whether an amicable settlement can be achieved regarding our differences ofopinion.

The letter-writing campaign to legislative representatives continues tobe very helpful. Many CPG members who wrote to urge their representatives to support thelicensure bill received pledges of support from their senators and assemblymen. All ofthese letters become part of the supporting materials which travel with the bill as itmakes its way through the legislative process. In addition, we welcome comments at anytime from our membership. Feel free to call or e-mail any of the Officers or Directorslisted in this newsletter. Make your opinion known.

While we have made much progress towards establishing legal recognitionof Professional Geologists, there is more work yet to do. It would be difficult tooverestimate the importance of our members, both individual and corporate. Financialsupport is our lifeblood and I am very grateful to those people and firms who provide theresources which allow the NYSCPG to carry this effort forward. We will depend upon youagain next year to bring this legislation to fruition. Keep the faith.

 Legislative Update

by Don Clarey, The Minerva Group

As the legislature continues in the yearlong impasse with the Governorover the 1999-2000 state budget, there has been very little substantial legislative actionin 1999, so far. Although the legislature adjourned on June 16, there is a large degree ofdoubt that the budget will be resolved any time soon. Accordingly, the legislature willtry to bring to a close the normal legislative business near the June 16 date, andcontinue to pass emergency budget extensions every two weeks while negotiations on thebudget continue.

Our legislation (S-3283/A6281) is still awaiting some final amendments. This resultsfrom continued negotiations with the Professional Engineers. This has been a long,drawn-out process but it is vital. We cannot expect the State Legislature to passlegislation before the major workable disagreements are resolved. This process has usworking toward perfecting the legislation. While this process has continued, we have metwith the two chairmen and staff directors of the committees that act upon our legislationprior to its advancing to the floor of each house, the Higher Education Committees.

Our sponsor, Assemblyman Steven Englebright  (D-Suffolk County) and I met privately with Assemblyman Edward Sullivan(D-New York City) to discuss the possibilities of passage in 1999. Sullivan, chairman ofthe Assembly Higher Education Committee, made it clear that our bill would not pass in1999. He cited the continuing disagreement between some of the bill’s interestedparties, as well as the fact that in his view the bill has not been before the legislaturelong enough. He felt that having the bill in both houses for only two years wasinsufficient. He noted that the a bill to professionalize all mental health providers hasbeen before the legislature for over ten years and only this year has sufficient progressbeen made to move it forward to enactment. While he assured us we would not have to waitanywhere near that time, action would have to wait at least until next year. Sullivanarranged for Bill Kelly, John Privitera (NYSCPG Counsel) and me to meet with his staffdirector, Stephanie Sorentino, to discuss the bill in depth. After our meeting she had amuch better understanding of the necessity for professional licensure for geologists andagreed to work closely with us to achieve that goal.

We also met with Diana Georgia, the counsel to the Senate Higher Education Committeeand the legislature’s expert of licensed professionals. She made it clear that thelegislature moves very slowly to add new categories of licensed professionals because suchdecisions usually have significant economic impacts and, as a result become verycontroversial. She complimented us on how far we have come and how organized we were andimplied that could speed up our timetable for passage. Once we have language ready to beadded to our bill in the form of an amendment, we will meet with her again for review andassessment of what the next steps will be. She stated the Committee likes to act early inthe session on this type of legislation so as to cause the various interested parties tocome forward in support or opposition early enough so differences can be resolved. Priorto getting to that point, she wants to have a roundtable discussion with all interestedparties to vote the bill. Interested individuals would include engineers, soil scientists,the State Education Department, the public employees unions, to name a few. Accordingly,we hope to have these preliminaries out of the way prior to the start of the nextlegislative session in January.

The New York State Legislature is very reluctant to add professions tothe education law and consequently sets a very high bar for all professions to jump. Overthe years they have constructed a very complex process to achieve success. There is a goodunderlying reason for this difficult process: they want to maintain the highest level ofstature for those professions under this law. That is why the system is designed to be adrawn-out process. Having now spent two legislative sessions pursuing this goal we now aremaking what we hope is final headway. It is a bit like joining an exclusive private club,the membership is very wary of prospective members and does a very thorough analysis priorto considering them for membership. We are well along now and quite frankly, we have seena positive side to this process: as we have perfected this legislation we have been forcedto ask ourselves some very essential questions, and our bill is now much better.

NYSCPG  1999 Corporate Sponsors: