Letter To The Editor More on De-Licensure Possible role for AIPG in licensing geologists
National registration is an interesting idea. Perhaps even a great idea, since national registration is still very unusual. Lawyers, doctors, engineers, and most technical professions go through state regulators. Still, it’s an increasingly global world, and maybe the time has come to expand the thinking. Two problems immediately come to mind: buy-in and enforce- ability.
For national registration to be successful, the current stakeholders must buy in. Arizona is taking an uncommon step in delicensing professionals, and I doubt that other states are lining up to follow that lead. Many states only began licensing geologists in the last 15 years, and might consider a national program an intrusion, especially if state licensing is an income source. Recall the territorial tug-of-war between Arizona and AIPG 15-20 years ago. Other national professional organizations might want a say, and there are enough national professional organizations for geologists alone that an attempt to include them could quickly become unwieldy. AIPG would have to find a way to organize a national licensing program that would not be perceived as stepping on others’ toes.
How would a national license be enforced? I doubt there have been many complaints against honest professional geologists, and AIPG—or any other licensing unit—would be filtering out the charlatans. But in the event of a complaint against a license-holder, who has jurisdiction? What might be the legal ramifications of withdrawing a license for professional mis- conduct (maybe there is a reason this doesn’t seem to happen very often in any profession)? Alternatively, is AIPG willing to defend a licensed geologist against a potentially spurious complaint from a grumpy client?
On the other hand, I can see a lot of value in having a national license. A national license would give geologists living and working in states that don’t currently license geologists some professional elbow room. It would also have more clout for geologists working internationally, since many foreign companies treat state licenses as provincial fluff.
But one of the best reasons for a national license would be the ability to iron out some of the inequities of state reg- istrations. Full disclosure: I may be more excited about this reason because it is personal. Some 20+ years ago, when I first sought registration, the rules in Arizona declared that experience would count toward the requirements of profes- sional registration only if that experience had been earned under a geologist registered in the state where the work took place. Very few states registered geologists back then. Even that early in my career, I could cobble together 10 solid years of experience, but only one that counted under Arizona rules. I testified in front of the State Board of Technical Registration in an effort to get them to be more flexible on that restric- tion, but to no avail. I began working outside the US soon after, and of course, that experience was also invisible to the Arizona SBTR. I found the whole process so offensive that I am personally somewhat soured on registration, and gave up on it years ago. It is one reason I have stayed loyal to AIPG and kept up my membership even in lean years, especially after AIPG made it clear they would defend the right of a CPG to advertise himself as a geologist in Arizona at a time when the State was threatening fines for professionals who had the temerity to call themselves geologists without state approval. A national registration would likely eliminate that kind of arbitrary filtering of experience—or at least loosen the filter.
National licensing could probably pay for itself with fees charged for the license as long as the license is desired even in states that currently license their professionals. (A license useful mostly to geologists who work in states that do not license professionals might be seen as a second class license.)
So—in short—does AIPG have the talent, creativity, and motivation to lead the effort to nationalize registration? (Probably!) Is AIPG willing to take on the headaches and legal problems that might result from such an effort? (One wonders!)
Ann Pattison
The INTRAW consortium has recently launched three operational reports providing insights on best practices and weak- nesses of raw materials research & innovation, education & outreach and industry & trade in the project’s five Reference Countries: Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa and the United States of America.
The findings of these operational reports also contribute to the design of the International Observatory on Raw Materials that is to be launched by the end of 2017. The Observatory will be a permanent international body that will remain operational after the end of the project, aiming at the establishment and maintenance of strong long-term relationships with the world’s key players in raw materials technology and scientific developments.
The operational reports and their summaries are available through the project website at
http://intraw.eu/publications/. We also invite you to follow the project’s seven-weeks-long social media campaign that provides further insights into the operational reports on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
www.aipg.org
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