The Alabama State Legislature started the 2005 regular session on February 1st by introducing 120 bills in the House of Representatives, and 64 bills in the senate.  As of the 8th day of the legislative session, 858 bills have been introduced in both legislative chambers.  The Joint Engineers Council of Alabama (JECA), the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Alabama, and the Alabama Board of Licensure (BOL) for Engineers and Land Surveyors are currently tracking approximately 80 of these bills that impact the practice of engineering in the state of Alabama.

One of these bills is an amendment to the state's Good Samaritan law that protects certain professionals, that are responding to an emergency situation, from lawsuits.  The existing bill covered medical professionals, but did not extend to architects and engineers.  After the hurricanes of 2004 caused significant damage to coastal Alabama, the Governor asked the engineering community for emergency assistance.  The engineering community declined because engineers could be sued for up to 13 years for those services even though they were provided for free.  The proposed amendment to the state's Good Sam law would protect engineers and architects who provide their services for free and are operating under the auspices of an emergency management organization.

Another significant bill would require "reverse auctions" for goods and services provided to the state.  This is similar to a regular auction in that all bidders get to see the low bid, and they have a option to revise their bid to beat the low bid.  Because the price goes down instead of up, it is commonly called a reverse auction.  This is a good way to purchase goods and some services, but it is a dangerous way to procure professional services.  Federal law mandates that professional services, such as provided by engineers and architects, must be procured on the basis of quality.  Alabama has a well-established Quality Based Selection (QBS) law on the books that could be threatened by the reverse auction bill.  The engineering community worked with the legislators to explain the concerns, and mutually acceptable language was inserted into the bill to protect the existing QBS law.

Why should we care what goes on in Montgomery?  Every citizen should care.  Every legislative act impacts the way we live our lives.  Professionals have a special obligation to be aware of how legislation will affect the practice of their chosen profession.  Engineers have an obligation by virtue of their education and knowledge to protect the health, safety and welfare of the general public.  We sometimes forget that obligation because we are so focused on our individual disciplines, and our specific discipline may not be directly affected by the legislature, but we need to remember the "big" picture and get involved.

JECA is an organization of engineering societies in Alabama that represent the interests of the engineering societies and individual professional engineers to the state legislature.  The Huntsville Section of the IEEE is a charter member of JECA.  For information on how the IEEE views legislative activity, please visit the following sites:

Lobby? You? Yes! Your Nonprofit Organization Can! It Should! (IEEE)
IRS on Lobbying by 501(c)(3) Organizations (IEEE)