Professions and vocations: regulatory authority.

Existing law, the Business and Professions Code, provides for the licensure and regulation of various professions and vocations by boards, bureaus, and commissions within the Department of Consumer Affairs, including, but not limited to, the California Architects Board and the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. Under existing law, a city or county shall not prohibit a person or group of persons, authorized by one of these boards, bureaus, or commissions, as specified, to engage in a particular business from engaging in that business. This bill would provide that, beginning July 1, 2013, the California Architects Board and the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists have the sole and exclusive authority to license and regulate the practice of professions and vocations regulated by those boards pursuant to provisions of that code, and that no licensing requirements, as specified, shall be imposed upon a person licensed to practice one of those professions or vocations other than under that code or by regulation promulgated by the applicable board through its authority granted under that code. The bill would prohibit a city, county, city and county, school district, other special district, a local or regional agency, joint powers agency, or state agency, department or other state office, except for those boards, from imposing a licensing requirement upon a person licensed to practice a profession or vocation regulated by one of these boards. The bill would state findings and declarations of the Legislature.