Perhaps you would have to live here to understand...and that is not meant at all as an insult.

The fact is we have 50 very different states that are for the most part fiercely independent.

Anything that happens on a national basis is usually done by force.

The seatbelt laws are a good example. The Feds wanted it, many States did not. So the Feds said OK, if you do not pass a seat belt law in your state we will cut off millions of dollars in highway funds.

Back to the electrical Licenses.

Here in MA the requirements to get a Journeyman license are 8000 hours in the field under a licensed person and 600 hours of school.

In some states there are no licenses.

So now you want to go National.

Do you let the long time electricians from the non-licensed areas get a license by 'grandfathering' greatly upsetting those of us that worked hard to get our license.

Or do you make all those electricians that may have been doing fine work for many years stop working and start out as apprentices again?

Mike I would like a National License. I live in a group of the smallest States (New England) I had to test for a MA, CT and RI license I can apply for a NH, ME and VT license based on reciprocity.

We only recently (in the past 15 years) went to a sort of National license for truck drivers. What had been happening was that truck drivers where holding State drivers licenses in many states so that they could hide a large number of road violations.

It took the feds to come down and sat that truck drivers needed a Federal CDL (Commercial Drivers License)

So call it stubbornness or just tradition but I do not see any interest on a Federal level for National Electrical Licenses.

Here in MA one of our Politicians wanted to eliminate trade licensing and inspection. He felt that the free market would be self policing. [Linked Image]

[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 12-21-2006).]

Bob Badger
Construction & Maintenance Electrician
Massachusetts