I have done further research into the laws of the state of Washington and have consulted with a source in Washington and what I have found is that the state has adopted a fairly conventional system of administrative law where the legislature defines some general criteria and then delegates the formal adoption of the regulations, which are laws, to a state agency. We should remember that building codes are about regulating the buildings not the individuals involved with the construction process. Will your argument protect you when you are accused of not filing your tax return or will we find building officials going to jail? Then the building officials will not file state tax returns. Inevitably some state agency will adopt the IBC without removing this provision. So let us do a test, have ICC insert a provision in the IBC exempting building officials from having to pay state income taxes or file tax returns, which should be popular among the membership of ICC. I hope we recognize that in this scenario that there are limits on what can be in the building code. Surely this will be of concern to anyone that is concerned about state rights. If we adopt the principle that they are all laws, then we have effectively given ICC the authority to control the law on any issue. Thus it is conceivable that there will be conflicts with the adopted regulations and state statutes directly adopted by the legislature. The state agency or a local jurisdiction then adopts the model code but does not review it to verify that there are no conflicts with existing state laws. The membership of ICC is not sophisticated in these legal issues and they put somethings into the model code that may conflict with individual state laws. Model codes are not a legal requirement and the author (ICC) can put in it whatever they want. We need to pay attention to how model codes such as the IBC get developed and then adopted. I repeat my suggestion, if you disagree then I suggest you send a letter to your state agency that regulates the practice of engineering stating that you will be regulating the practice of engineering. There is a basic legal principle that regulations are subservient to statutes directly adopted by the legislature. In most places this means that the agency adopting the building regulations does not have the authority to regulate the practice of engineering. Separately the legislature explicitly delegated the regulation of the practice of engineering to a separate agency. The IRC provision is only a limit is you do not realize that you can also invoke the IBC provisions.ĭoes the legislature in WA directly adopt the building code or does it delegate that task to a state agency? When the legislature delegated the adoption of building regulations to a state agency did they also delegate to that agency the regulation of engineers. If you disagree then I suggest you send a letter to your state agency that regulates the practice of engineering stating that you will be regulating the practice of engineering. I suspect that if you look at your state constitution there are limits on the home rule authority of the local jurisdiction. Home rule authority can only exist if provided for in the state constitution or possibly authorized by the legislature. Now I can hearing some claim that their jurisdiction can regulate engineering because of home rule. This would be similar to a city passing a law legalizing slavery. So while the building code might have such requirements they are null and void. State statutes control over regulations or local ordinances. The state has not given local jurisdictions the authority to regulate the practice of engineering. The reason that the building code cannot define when an engineer is required has to do with the fact that the licensing provisions are defined by the legislature and the building code is a regulation or local ordinance. I am simply stating that it is inappropriate for the building code to regulate engineering. I am not advocating that engineering be done by non-licensed individuals.
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